[openstack-dev] [kolla] Heka v ELK stack logistics

David Moreau Simard dms at redhat.com
Wed Jan 13 12:55:29 UTC 2016


So is it decided that we want Heka instead of ELK in Kolla and that it is
just a matter of time, then ?

Clark Boyle put forward some very good points [1] which seem to have gone
sadly mostly ignored.

What are we trying to address by replacing ELK ? Performance ? Clark's
numbers are far from being bad and ELK effectively scales in any direction
you want.

I'll put on my operator hat and would like to give my +1 to keep ELK
instead of Heka.
ELK at this point is all but a golden standard. People know it, people use
it, people troubleshoot it. If something goes wrong, I can go on Google, on
IRC or mailing lists and expect someone to be able to help.
This is worth a lot to operators. OpenStack is already expensive enough,
even if you don't take the vendor route.

Python is slow but you don't see OpenStack being rewritten in Go (ok,
Swift, you're an exception). Python just has that massive community of
developers that OpenStack can tap into. This is worth a lot and in that
respect, I am happy that OpenStack is in Python, even if it is slow.

I'm not saying Heka is a bad decision or that it's an eccentric/exotic
choice. But please let the decision be mindful of the people that will be
deploying, configuring and supporting this. I don't believe a performance
increase is worth it unless ELK was a real and painful bottleneck, which it
is not.

My 0.02$CAD (definitely not worth a lot right now)

[1]:
http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2016-January/083916.html

David Moreau Simard
Senior Software Engineer | Openstack RDO

dmsimard = [irc, github, twitter]
On Jan 13, 2016 7:20 AM, "Steven Dake (stdake)" <stdake at cisco.com> wrote:

> Hey folks,
>
> I'd like to have a mailing list discussion about logistics of the ELKSTACK
> solution that Alicja has sorted out vs the Heka implementation that Eric is
> proposing.
>
> My take on that is Eric wants to replace rsyslog and logstash with Heka.
> That seems fine, but I want to make certain this doesn't happen in a way
> that leaves Kolla completely non-functional as we finish up Mitaka.
> Liberty is the first version of Kolla people will deploy, and Mitaka is the
> first version of Kolla people will upgrade to, so making sure that we don't
> completely bust diagnostics (and I recognize diags as is are a little weak
> is critical).
>
> It sounds like from my reading of the previous thread on this topic,
> unless there is some intractable problem, our goal is to use Heka to
> replace resyslog and logstash.  I'd ask inc0 (who did the rsyslog work) and
> Alicja (who did the elkstack work) to understand that replacement often
> happens on work that has already been done, and its not a "waste of time"
> so to speak as an evolution of the system.
>
> Here are the deadlines:
> http://docs.openstack.org/releases/schedules/mitaka.html
>
> Let me help decode that for folks. March 4th is the final deadline to have
> a completely working solution based upon Heka if its to enter Mitaka.
>
> Unlike previous releases of Kolla, I want to hand off release management
> of Kolla to the release management team, and to do that, we need to show a
> track record of hitting our deadlines and not adding features past feature
> freeze (the m3 milestone on March 4th).  In the past releases of Kolla we
> as a team were super loose on this requirement – going forward I prefer us
> being super strict.  Handing off to release management is a sign of
> maturity and would have an overall positive impact, assuming we can get the
> software written in time :)
>
> Eric,
>
> I'd like a plan and commitment to either hit Mitaka 3, or the N cycle.  It
> must work well first on Ansible, and second on Mesos.  If it doesn't work
> at all on Mesos, I could live with that -  I think the Mesos implementation
> will really not be ready for prime time until the middle or completion of
> the N cycle.  We lead with Ansible, and I don't see that changing any time
> soon – as a result, I want our Ansible deployment to be rock solid and
> usable out of the gate.  I don't expect to "Market" Mitaka Mesos (with the
> OpenStack foundation's help) as "production ready" but rather as "tech
> preview" and something for folks to evaluate.
>
> Alicja,
>
> I think a parallel development effort with the ELKSTACK that your working
> on makes sense.  In case the Heka development fails entirely, or misses
> Mitaka 3, I don't want us left lacking a diagnostics solution for Mitaka.
> Diagnostics is my priority #2 for Kolla (#1 is upgrades).  Unfortunately
> what this means is you may end up wasting your time doing development that
> is replaced at the last minute in Mitaka 3, or later in the N cycle.  This
> is very common in software development (all the code I wrote for Magnum has
> been sadly replaced).  I know you can be a good team player here and take
> one for the team so to speak, but I'm asking you if you would take offense
> to this approach.
>
> I'd like comments/questions/concerns on the above logistics approach
> discussed, and a commitment from Eric as to when he thinks all the code
> would land as one patch stream unit.
>
> I'd also like to see the code come in as one super big patch stream (think
> 30 patches in the stream) so the work can be evaluated and merged as one
> unit.  I could also live with 2-3 different patch streams with 10-15
> patches per stream, just so we can eval as a unit.  This means lots of
> rebasing on your part Eric ;-)  It also means a commitment from the core
> reviewer team to test and review this critical change.  If there isn't a
> core reviewer on board with this approach, please speak up now.
>
> Regards
> -steve
>
>
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