Open Stack

Hi all,

Below is a record of continued conversation with the presenter (Yibo)
regarding this talk, he provides some background and motivation
(essentially to provide some competition to Intel in the server
marketplace) and suggests some suitable workloads (e.g. storage).
Still doesn't seem like it fits well into any current track to me, but
interesting nonetheless.

Cheers,

Forwarded conversation
Subject: Fwd: Track chair Blair Bethwaite has a question about your presentation
------------------------

...

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From: Blair Bethwaite <blair.bethwaite at gmail.com>
Date: 24 July 2016 at 22:26
To: Yibo Cai <yibo.cai at linaro.org>


Hi Yibo,

On 24 July 2016 at 12:14, Yibo Cai <yibo.cai at linaro.org> wrote:
> Sorry for contacting you directly. I received following mail, but don't know how to reply.

No problem, looks like a bug in the process.

> About my presentation proposal "OpenStack Enablement on AArch64", I don't find any track matching or even close to this topic. Maybe we need a “misc" track :)
> Cloud App Development is the one I prefer, because my proposal covers OpenStack deployment and configuration.

We've discussed it further and one of the chairs for the
"Architectural Decisions" track has agreed to take a look at whether
it might fit into his track, as it's currently sitting in "HPC /
Research" after being moved between other tracks a couple of times
(but it doesn't belong there either).

At the moment it sounds very much like it is an infrastructure, rather
than appdev, focused presentation, i.e., make OpenStack work well on
AArch64. What makes you think it fits with the "Cloud App Development"
track, which is "... for users who are building and deploying
applications on OpenStack clouds, and cover topics like automating and
managing application deployment, application software configuration,
SDKs, tools, PaaS and big data."?

Best regards,
Blair

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From: Yibo Cai <yibo.cai at linaro.org>
Date: 25 July 2016 at 11:25
To: Blair Bethwaite <blair.bethwaite at gmail.com>


Hi Blair,

In fact, I don't think my presentation fits with "Cloud App
Development", but other tracks look more improper to me. I only find
some words "deployment", "configuration" which I cover when talking
about OpenStack deployment on AArch64. But it's not for "automating
and managing application deployment".

About Architectural Decisions: "If you are a cloud architect or
involved in planning your cloud srategy, this track will discuss
popular reference architectures, configuration options, workload
optimiziation, and architecture show and tell, where experienced users
will share their architectures and experiences." I think it's a more
general topic, my proposal can fit with it. The catch is that I'm not
an "experienced user" as I started touching OpenStack at April this
year.

Thanks for carefully reviewing the presentation proposal.

BR,
Yibo

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From: Blair Bethwaite <blair.bethwaite at gmail.com>
Date: 25 July 2016 at 11:37
To: Yibo Cai <yibo.cai at linaro.org>


Hi Yibo,

It might help if we had some idea of the significance and/or relevance
with respect to the motivation for making OpenStack work well on
AArch64. I think it's safe to assume not many people will even know
about AArch64 and how it differs from x86. What value for OpenStack do
you see in having good AArch64 support?

Cheers,
Blair


----------
From: Yibo Cai <yibo.cai at linaro.org>
Date: 25 July 2016 at 19:46
To: Blair Bethwaite <blair.bethwaite at gmail.com>


Hi Blair,

Here's a brief introduction of the purpose of enabling OpenStack on AArch64.

The data center server market is monopolized by Intel x86
architecture. With the huge success in mobile CPU, ARM developed
AArch64 architecture aiming to grab some data center share from Intel.
And competition is always welcomed by the market.

After more than two years development and upgrading, the hardware is
now mature and gains comparable performance as Intel. Now software
becomes a bottleneck. ARM must make all state of the art workloads,
such as clouding and big data, to run smoothly on AArch64 platform.
Otherwise, no one will use the hardware.

Many data center software, including OpenStack, is developed, tested
and profiled on Intel platform, there may be some problems when
running on AArch64 or other architecture. We (Linaro SDI team) verify
OpenStack modules on AArch64, do bugfix, profiling and upstream.

I cannot say for now what big benefits will bring to OpenStack by
supporting AArch64 well. I think AArch64 is a promising server
architecture and to support it well also helps improving OpenStack,
both in technical and future influence.

BR,
Yibo

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From: Blair Bethwaite <blair.bethwaite at gmail.com>
Date: 25 July 2016 at 19:54
To: Yibo Cai <yibo.cai at linaro.org>


Thanks Yibo, that's really helpful and I'll pass that back to the
other track chairs for consideration. Also, I wonder if there are
workloads (running atop OpenStack clouds) that are particularly
suitable or likely to benefit from AArch64, e.g., what compelling
features would make me want to deploy AArch64 servers to offer to
users off my cloud?


----------
From: Yibo Cai <yibo.cai at linaro.org>
Date: 25 July 2016 at 20:14
To: Blair Bethwaite <blair.bethwaite at gmail.com>


Hi Blair,

Compared with Intel x86, ARM AArch64 is very young and the product
line is narrow.
For computation intensive workloads, AArch64 is still obviously below
x86. But for I/O intensive workloads, such as  storage, AArch64 is a
good replacement for x86 combining the performance and cost.

BR,
Yibo

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From: Blair Bethwaite <blair.bethwaite at gmail.com>
Date: 25 July 2016 at 20:29
To: Yibo Cai <yibo.cai at linaro.org>


Understood. As I said, I'll pass all this info back to the other
chairs for consideration. Good luck!

Cheers,
Blair
----------

-- 
Blair Bethwaite
HPC Consultant (eResearch) -
Monash eResearch Centre (https://platforms.monash.edu/eresearch/)
R&D, System Admin, Cloud & Grid support specialist -
Monash eScience & Grid Engineering Lab (http://www.messagelab.monash.edu.au/)
Mobile: 0439-545-002
Office: +61 3-9903-2800