<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">On Thu, Dec 20, 2018 at 8:22 AM Zhipeng Huang <<a href="mailto:zhipengh512@gmail.com">zhipengh512@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">I'm also very interested in the use case here, for accelerators deployed at edge it would be needed to have zero touch provision capability as Jay described.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Accelerators...interesting. I would be happy to hear more about that use case. <br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div>I'm wondering if the open firmware project [0] could be of help here by any means ? I saw there was a FB presentation that they use it for provisioning automation in their datacenter at the OCP Regional Summit.</div><div><br></div><div>[0] <a href="https://www.opencompute.org/wiki/Open_System_Firmware" target="_blank">https://www.opencompute.org/wiki/Open_System_Firmware</a> </div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Quite possibly, or perhaps ONIE as well, or a combination. :)</div><div><br></div><div>Mostly I was wondering if there had been any discussion in the edge group, or if anyone knows of any major activities around this area. I think a zero touch related group was just recently started at ETSI [1] but haven't read through related docs yet.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Thanks,<br></div><div>Curtis</div><div><br></div><div>[1]: <a href="https://www.etsi.org/index.php/technologies-clusters/technologies/zero-touch-network-service-management">https://www.etsi.org/index.php/technologies-clusters/technologies/zero-touch-network-service-management</a><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">On Thu, Dec 20, 2018 at 9:09 PM Jay Pipes <<a href="mailto:jaypipes@gmail.com" target="_blank">jaypipes@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">On 12/20/2018 07:12 AM, Curtis wrote:<br>
> Hi,<br>
> <br>
> I've been looking through the docs I can find related to the edge <br>
> working group, and I'm wondering if there has been any <br>
> discussion/documentation of a Zero Touch Provisioning use case. I can't <br>
> seem to find anything, but I may not be looking in the right place. Just <br>
> wanted to double check and see what the current state is, if any.<br>
<br>
I take it that by "zero touch *provisioning*" (emphasis added to <br>
differentiate from zero *configuration* networking, you are referring to <br>
the ability for a new server to be rack-and-stacked in a site, powered <br>
on, and immediately register itself with either a local inventory <br>
management system or a remote one?<br>
<br>
In either case, the issue I foresee is that the firmware (or initial <br>
boot/ramdisk that comes from the factory or supply chain team) will need <br>
to have some program installed in it that sends out a request looking <br>
for some known/assumed inventory management service [1]. The thing that <br>
*responds* to such a request would, of course, need to be already <br>
installed and available either on a switch or a pre-installed machine <br>
pingable on the out-of-band network and already configured by the team <br>
that handles hardware inventory.<br>
<br>
I can see some vendors working on their own custom low-touch <br>
provisioning software -- and this software would likely end up depending <br>
on their own proprietary (or subscription-based) server software ala Red <br>
Hat's Satellite software [2]). But getting all the vendors to come <br>
together on a unified low-touch provisioning system? Chances are pretty <br>
slim, IMHO.<br>
<br>
Still, it's an interesting problem domain and I'd be interested in <br>
sharing thoughts and discussing it with others. Here at <br>
"Yahoo!/Oath/Verizon Media Group/Whatever we'll be called next month" we <br>
have custom software (and a bit of custom hardware!) that handles base <br>
hardware provisioning and I'm definitely interested in seeing if other <br>
shops that handle hundreds of thousands of baremetal machines are <br>
looking to collaborate in this area ("edge" or otherwise!).<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
-jay<br>
<br>
[1] this could be done via some custom DHCPDISCOVER/DHCPREQUEST bits I <br>
suppose -- which would require a DHCP client in the firmware/bootdisk -- <br>
but more likely would depend on the IPMI/BMC system in use for the <br>
hardware. As soon as IPMI/BMC comes into play, the extreme differences <br>
in OEM vendor support will rule out a generic workable solution here as <br>
many in the Ironic community will likely attest to [3]. If you can rely <br>
on a homogeneous set of hardware at edge sites, you might be able to put <br>
something together that just suits your company's need, however.<br>
<br>
[2] <a href="https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/management/satellite" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/management/satellite</a><br>
<br>
[3] <a href="https://github.com/openstack/ironic/tree/master/ironic/drivers" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://github.com/openstack/ironic/tree/master/ironic/drivers</a><br>
<br>
</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail-m_5089860021111617635gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Zhipeng (Howard) Huang</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Principle Engineer</div><div>IT Standard & Patent/IT Product Line</div><div dir="ltr">Huawei Technologies Co,. Ltd</div><div dir="ltr">Email: <a href="mailto:huangzhipeng@huawei.com" target="_blank">huangzhipeng@huawei.com</a></div><div dir="ltr">Office: Huawei Industrial Base, Longgang, Shenzhen</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature">Blog: <a href="http://serverascode.com" target="_blank">serverascode.com</a></div></div></div>