Open Stack

Very quick note it turns out our mailing lists archives where private I
have no marked them as public.   If the links didn't work for you in the
last 24 hrs try again.


On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 2:40 AM, Aryeh Friedman <aryeh.friedman at gmail.com>wrote:

>         We apologize for the unclearness of our wording both here and on
> our site (http://www.petitecloud.org).  Over the next few weeks we will
> work on improving our descriptions of various aspects of what PetiteCloud
> is and what it is not.  We will also add a set of tutorials showing what a
> cloud foundation layer (CFL) is and how it can make OpenStack more stable
> and robust in non-data-center environments.  In the meantime, hopefully my
> answers below will help with some immediate clarification.
>
>         For general answers as to what a CFL is, see our 25 words or less
> answer on our site (http://petitecloud.org/cloudFoundation.jsp) or see
> the draft notes for a forthcoming white paper on the topic (
> http://lists.petitecloud.nyclocal.net/private.cgi/petitecloud-general-petitecloud.nyclocal.net/attachments/20140213/3fee4df0/attachment-0001.pdf).
> OpenStack does not currently have a cloud foundation layer of its own
> (creating one might be a good sub-project for OpenStack).
>
> Your specfic questions are answered inline:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 11:28 PM, Robert Collins <
> robertc at robertcollins.net> wrote:
>
>> I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but I've been seeing your emails come
>> in, and I've read your website, and I still have 0% clue about what
>> PetiteCloud is.
>>
>> On 12 February 2014 21:56, Aryeh Friedman <aryeh.friedman at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > PetiteCloud is a 100% Free Open Source and Open Knowledge bare metal
>> capable
>> > Cloud Foundation Layer for Unix-like operating systems. It has the
>> following
>> > features:
>>
>> What is a Cloud Foundation Layer? Whats the relevance of OK here (I
>> presume you mean http://okfn.org/ ?).
>>
>
>
> We have no connection with the above site. Personally we agree with its
> goals, but our use of the term "Open Knowledge" is different and pertains
> only to technical knowledge. See our web site for details on what we mean
> by that term. http://petitecloud.org/fosok.jsp
>
>
>>
>> >     * Support for bhyve (FreeBSD only) and QEMU
>> >     * Any x86 OS as a guest (FreeBSD and Linux via bhyve or QEMU; all
>> others
>> > via QEMU only) and all supported software (including running OpenStack
>> on
>> > VM's)
>> >     * Install, import, start, stop and reboot instances safely (guest OS
>> > needs to be controlled independently)
>> >     * Clone, backup/export, delete stopped instances 100% safely
>>
>> So far it sounds like a hypervisor management layer - which is what Nova
>> is.
>>
>
> Nova is for running end user instances. PetiteCloud is designed (see
> below) to run instances that OpenStack can run on and then partition into
> end-user instances.
>
>
>>
>> >     * Keep track of all your instances on one screen
>>
>> I think you'll need a very big screen eventually :)
>>
> Not a huge one.  A CFL needs to run only a relatively small number of
> instances itself. Remember that a cloud foundation layer's instances can be
> used as hosts (a.k.a. nodes) for a full-fledged IAAS platform such as
> OpenStack. Thus, for example, a set of just four PetiteCloud instances
> might serve as the complete compute, networking, storage, etc. nodes for an
> OpenStack installation which in turn is running, say 10 instances.
> Addtional compute, storage and/or hybrid nodes (real and virtual) can be
> added to the deploy via any combination of bare metal openstack nodes and
> CFL'ed ones. Since PetiteCloud does not, yet, have any API hooks you would
> need to limit this to a small number of PetiteCloud hosts.
>
>
>>
>> >     * All transactions that change instance state are password
>> protected at
>> > all critical stages
>> >     * Advanced options:
>> >         * Ability to use/make bootable bare metal disks for backing
>> stores
>> >         * Multiple NIC's and disks
>> >         * User settable (vs. auto assigned) backing store locations
>>
>> if backing store == virtual disk, this sounds fairly straight forward,
>> though 'bootable bare metal disks' is certainly an attention grabbing
>> statement for a hypervisor.
>>
>
> As explained in the white paper, since we are a full layer 0 cloud
> platform instead of just a hypervisor manager we can do stuff that would
> normally not be possible for a unmanaged hypervisor (or even wise if not
> managed by a full layer 0 platform). One of them is you can make the
> storage target of your layer 0 instances be a physical disk. Additionally
> since petitecloud does not require any "guest modifications" when you
> install the OS (which is managed by the hypervisor) you can make your root
> disk be a physical drive. You can take this to some really interesting
> extremes like one of our core team members (not me) posted a few nights ago
> to our mailing list how to make a "cloud on a stick".
> http://lists.petitecloud.nyclocal.net/private.cgi/petitecloud-general-petitecloud.nyclocal.net/2014-February/000106.htmlNamely how have a bootable USB drive that contains your entire cloud.
>
>
>>
>> >     * A growing number of general purpose and specialized
>> > instances/applications are available for PetiteCloud
>> >
>> > We would like to know if people a) find this useful and b) does it live
>> up
>> > to it's claims for a wide variety of open stack installs
>>
>> I'm not clear what its claims are w.r.t. OpenStack. Is it a testing
>> /development tool like
>> https://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack-dev/devstack ? Is it a
>> deployment tool like
>> https://git.openstack.irg/cgit/openstack/tripleo-incubator? Is it a
>> profiling tool like https://git.openstack.org/cgit/stackforge/rally?
>>
>
> None of the above. The purpose of a CFL is to make OpenStack easier to use
> outside of a data center, e.g. to make it easier to create cookie-cutter
> IAAS clouds. A CFL (ours or someone else's) is desirable when using
> OpenStack in small private clouds because OpenStack was designed to be run
> in data centers. OpenStack is starting to show a tiny bit of success in
> running outside of data centers, although OpenStack's design makes this
> difficult. We do not see how it is possible to have large scale adoption of
> OpenStack in typical small to medium sized organizations that do not have
> data centers until there is a solid CFL (ours or someone else's) under it.
>
> During the process of clarifying our website, etc., we will be asking, via
> the PetiteCloud mailing list (
> http://lists.petitecloud.nyclocal.net/listinfo.cgi/petitecloud-general-petitecloud.nyclocal.net),
> for help in making everything as clear as possible. If you're interested in
> helping in the process please join the discussion on our list.
> --
> Aryeh M. Friedman, Lead Developer, http://www.PetiteCloud.org
>



-- 
Aryeh M. Friedman, Lead Developer, http://www.PetiteCloud.org
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