[openstack-dev] [Neutron][Architecture]Suggestions for the third vendors' plugin and driver

Kevin Benton blak111 at gmail.com
Fri Sep 12 03:11:22 UTC 2014


> Maybe I missed something, but what's the solution?

There isn't one yet. That's why it's going to be discussed at the summit.

> I think we should release a workable version.

Definitely. But that doesn't have anything to do with it living in the same
repository. By putting it in a different repo, it provides smaller code
bases to learn for new contributors wanting to become a core developer in
addition to a clear separation between plugins and core code.

> Besides of user experience, the open source drivers are also used for
developing and verifying new features, even small-scale case.

Sure, but this also isn't affected by the code being in a separate repo.

> The community should and just need focus on the Neutron core and provide
framework for vendors' devices.

I agree, but without the open source drivers being separated as well, it's
very difficult for the framework for external drivers to be stable enough
to be useful.

On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 7:24 PM, Germy Lure <germy.lure at gmail.com> wrote:

> Some comments inline.
>
> BR,
> Germy
>
> On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 5:47 PM, Kevin Benton <blak111 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This has been brought up several times already and I believe is going to
>> be discussed at the Kilo summit.
>>
> Maybe I missed something, but what's the solution?
>
>
>> I agree that reviewing third party patches eats community time. However,
>> claiming that the community pays 46% of it's energy to maintain
>> vendor-specific code doesn't make any sense. LOC in the repo has very
>> little to do with ongoing required maintenance. Assuming the APIs for the
>> plugins stay consistent, there should be few 'maintenance' changes required
>> to a plugin once it's in the tree. If there are that many changes to
>> plugins just to keep them operational, that means Neutron is far too
>> unstable to support drivers living outside of the tree anyway.
>>
> Yes, you are right. "Neutron is far too unstable to support drivers living
> outside of the tree anyway". So I think this is really our important point.
> The community should focus on standardizing NB&SB API, introducing and
> improving new features NOT wasting energy to introduce and maintain
> vendor-specific codes.
>
>>
>> On a related note, if we are going to pull plugins/drivers out of
>> Neutron, I think all of them should be removed, including the OVS and
>> LinuxBridge ones. There is no reason for them to be there if Neutron has
>> stable enough internal APIs to eject the 3rd party plugins from the repo.
>> They should be able to live in a separate neutron-opensource-drivers repo
>> or something along those lines. This will free up significant amounts of
>> developer/reviewer cycles for neutron to work on the API refactor, task
>> based workflows, performance improvements for the DB operations, etc.
>>
> I think we should release a workable version. User can experience the
> functions powered by built-in components. And they can replace them with
> the release of those vendors who cooperate with them. The community should
> not work for vendor's codes.
>
>>
>> If the open source drivers stay in the tree and the others are removed,
>> there is little incentive to keep the internal APIs stable and 3rd party
>> drivers sitting outside of the tree will break on every refactor or data
>> structure change. If that's the way we want to treat external driver
>> developers, let's be explicit about it and just post warnings that 3rd
>> party drivers can break at any point and that the onus is on the external
>> developers to learn what changed an react to it. At some point they will
>> stop bothering with Neutron completely in their deployments and mimic its
>> public API.
>>
> Besides of user experience, the open source drivers are also used for
> developing and verifying new features, even small-scale case.
>
>>
>> A clear separation of the open source drivers/plugins and core Neutron
>> would give a much better model for 3rd party driver developers to follow
>> and would enforce a stable internal API in the Neutron core.
>>
> The community should and just need focus on the Neutron core and provide
> framework for vendors' devices. Vendors just need adapt Neutron API and
> focus on their codes' quality. If not, I think the architecture is not
> proper. Everyone should only carry their own monkey.
>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 1:54 AM, Germy Lure <germy.lure at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi stackers,
>>>
>>> According to my statistics(J2), the LOC of vendors' plugin and driver is
>>> about 102K, while the whole under neutron is 220K.
>>> That is to say the community has paid and is paying over 46% energy to
>>> maintain vendors' code. If we take mails, bugs,
>>> BPs  and so on into consideration, this percentage will be more.
>>>
>>> Most of these codes are just plugins and drivers implementing
>>> almost  the same functions. Every vendor submits a plugin,
>>> and the community only do the same thing, repeat and repeat.
>>> Meaningless.I think it's time to move them out.
>>> Let's focus on improving those exist but still weak features, on
>>> introducing important and interesting new features.
>>>
>>> My suggestions now:
>>> 1.monopolized plugins
>>>   1)The community only standards NB API and keeps built-ins, such as
>>> ML2, OVS and Linux bridge plugins.
>>>   2)Vendors maintain their plugins locally.
>>>   3)Users get neutron from community and plugin from some vendor on
>>> demand.
>>> 2.service plugins
>>>   1)The community standards SB API and keeps open source
>>> driver(iptables, openSwan and etc.) as built-in.
>>>   2)Vendors only provide drivers not plugin. And those drivers also need
>>> not deliver to community.
>>>   3)Like above, Users can get code on demand from vendors or just use
>>> open source.
>>> 3.ML2 plugin
>>>   1)Like service and monopolized plugin, the community just keep open
>>> source implementations as built-in.
>>>   2)L2-population should be kept.
>>>
>>> I am very happy to discuss this further.
>>>
>>> vendors' code stat. table(excluding built-in plugins and drivers)
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Path                                                     Size
>>> neutron-master\neutron\plugins\    63170
>>> neutron-master\neutron\services\     4052
>>> neutron-master\neutron\tests\             35756
>>>
>>> BR,
>>> Germy
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> OpenStack-dev mailing list
>>> OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org
>>> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Kevin Benton
>>
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>>
>
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-- 
Kevin Benton
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