Open Stack

Hello Everyone,

This e-mail has been a long time coming. I've spent the last few weeks attempting to summarize summit discussions[1] and target blueprints[2] to be able to generate a more comprehensive overview of where we are going for the next few months.

Major Efforts
=============

There a ton of work going on in the nova world these days. I can't possibly hope to summarize all of it, but here are a few of the major ones.

No-db-compute
-------------

There is a ton of work going on to remove the database access from the compute workers. There are many benefits to this, including improved security, scalability, and performance. This is primarily being led by russelb and dansmith.

Cells
-----

The rackspace code for cells is under review. It needs some help to support all features, but it should be in core relatively soon. The point of contact for this area of the code is comstud.

Bare-Metal Compute
------------------

This code is large and there has been concern that it will lead to a painful maintenance effort. With help from NTT, virtualtech, ISI, and now HP, we should have enough developers to get this cleaned up and in to core.

Database Cleanup
----------------

We're trying to improve our database usage around constraints, transactions and race-conditions. The main effort here is being led by devananda.

Api V3
------

The v3 api will be a cleanup only revision. We aren't doing a major rewrite or adding new features. We will be getting rid of inconsistencies, potentially downgrading some core features to extensions, and promoting a few extensions to core. This work is being headed up by sdague.

Config Option Cleanup
---------------------

We had over 500 options at the folsom release. These options will be cleaned up, deduplicated, and tagged with various labels in order to make them easier to use. Thanks to markmc for leading this.

Hypervisor Driver Work
----------------------

There is a lot of work being done in the various hypervisors. Leading these efforts:

 * libvirt/kvm: rmk
 * xenapi: johngarbutt
 * hyper-v: alexpilotti

Quantum Integration
-------------------

Work is being done to improve the integration with quantum. While this is primarily being driven by the quantum team (thanks danwent!) there is plenty being done in nova as well.

General Tasks
-------------

There is a lot of general cleanup being done across the project. On my list of star helpers: mikal, jog0, Vek, jerdfelt, harlowja. With these guys filling in the gaps, the quality of the release will be much higher.

I'm sure I forgot to mention some people, so many thanks to everyone else who has been helping out! I can barely keep up with the review emails these days.

How You Can Help
================

Un-Assigned Blueprints
----------------------

There are a few important blueprints[2] that don't have an assignee yet. Here are a couple that could use some love:

 * https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/improve-block-device-handling
 * https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/nova-api-samples


If you want to help out, let me know!

Missing Blueprints
------------------

I'm sure there is work being done that isn't covered by blueprints. Feel free to file any that are missing and ping me. Keep in mind that ideas for features without someone to actually work on them isn't very useful.

Low Hanging Fruit
-----------------

We attempt to tag bugs that we fill are pretty easy to fix with low-hanging-fruit[3]. If you want to get your feet wet with nova, try tackling one of those bugs.

Bug Triaging
------------

We are trying to keep untriaged bugs low[4]. Feel free to help out[5].

Weekly Meetings
---------------

We have weekly meetings[6] discussing all issues nova. Feel free to drop in and paricipate.

[1]: http://stack.sh/p/blog/2012/11/06/nova-grizzly-summit-summary
[2]: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/grizzly
[3]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/nova/+bugs?field.tag=low-hanging-fruit
[4]: http://webnumbr.com/untouched-nova-bugs
[5]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/nova/+bugs?search=Search&field.status=New
[6]: http://wiki.openstack.org/Meetings/Nova