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On 09/09/2014 04:24 PM, Michael Still wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> One of the last things blocking Ironic from graduating is deciding
> whether or not we need a Nova API proxy for the old baremetal
> extension to new fangled Ironic API. The TC has asked that we discuss
> whether we think this functionality is actually necessary.
> 
> It should be noted that we're _not_ talking about migration of
> deployed instances from baremetal to Ironic. That is already
> implemented. What we are talking about is if users post-migration
> should be able to expect their previous baremetal Nova API extension
> to continue to function, or if they should use the Ironic APIs from
> that point onwards.
> 
> Nova had previously thought this was required, but it hasn't made it
> in time for Juno unless we do a FFE, and it has been suggested that
> perhaps its not needed at all because it is an admin extension.
> 
> To be super specific, we're talking about the "baremetal nodes" admin
> extension here. This extension has the ability to:
> 
>  - list nodes running baremetal
>  - show detail of one of those nodes
>  - create a new baremetal node
>  - delete a baremetal node
> 
> Only the first two of those would be supported if we implemented a proxy.
> 
> So, discuss.

nova-baremetal is, and has been for a while, a dead end.  That shouldn't
be a surprise to anyone who cares about it at this point.  By rights it
should have been ripped out a while ago since it's never met the
hypervisor requirements Nova enforces on everyone else.  Spending
additional effort on a partial compatibility layer for it seems like a
complete waste of time to me.

In addition, if we _do_ add a proxy then we're committing to supporting
that going forward, and frankly I think we've got better things to spend
our time on.  Unless we're planning to add it and immediately deprecate
it so we can remove it (and baremetal?) next cycle.  Which seems like a
silly thing to do. :-)

I mean, even assuming we did this, what's the real benefit?  If you
switch to Ironic without updating your tools, you've just made your
entire infrastructure read-only.  Nobody's actually going to do that,
are they?  And if they are, do they care that much about being able to
view their node list/details?  What are they going to do with that
information?  Can they even trust that the information is correct?  How
are we going to test this proxy when we don't test baremetal to any
meaningful degree today?

So yeah, -1 from me to a proxy that's at best a half-measure anyway.
Let's just put baremetal to rest already.

-Ben

> 
> Thanks,
> Michael
>