Open Stack

From: David Moreau Simard <dms at redhat.com<mailto:dms at redhat.com>>
Reply-To: "OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)" <openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org<mailto:openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org>>
Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2016 at 5:55 AM
To: "OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)" <openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org<mailto:openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org>>
Subject: Re: [openstack-dev] [kolla] Heka v ELK stack logistics


So is it decided that we want Heka instead of ELK in Kolla and that it is just a matter of time, then ?

Before "deciding" a vote is necessary of the core reviewers.  I just want to get the ball rolling because it seems like the core reviewers are leaning towards a Heka based solution and if we do use Heka, I'd like it done in Mitaka if at all possible so our operators don't have to learn a new diagnostics system.

My beef against rsyslog is it has a bunch of gaps that we will never be able to fix.  I don't recall the exact details, but inc0 or SamYaple could probably point them out in more detail.  In my opinion this isn't about replacing logstash, this is about replacing rsyslog.  This also isn't about performance or scalability – I think logstash can do the performance job needed for an OpenStack diagnostics system.

It may be that Heka turns out to be a waste of time – the only way to know for certain is to see a proof of concept implementation – and if its better then logstash, merge it.

I also have a beef against Java in general, because of the JVM fork between open source and Oracle.  To me this makes dependencies that use Java less viable – even though I recognize Elasticsearch is implemented in Java.

I recognize all your points about the well known mature nature of logstash.  To me this is a huge advantage.  Choosing dependencies wisely is one of the most important decisions made in software design and maturity goes a long way in the decision making process about dependency acceptance.  I don't know much about Heka's maturity or even suitability for our problems – I am just basing this discussion on the direction I see happening on the mailing list.

It would be nice if we could have both and select one or the other, but we are not going to be implementing in that manner as we need to choose one or the other.

A POC that fixes all the gaps in rsyslog will be necessary to obtain my +2 on the patch stream reviews.

Regards
-steve



Clark Boyle put forward some very good points [1] which seem to have gone sadly mostly ignored.

What are we trying to address by replacing ELK ? Performance ? Clark's numbers are far from being bad and ELK effectively scales in any direction you want.

I'll put on my operator hat and would like to give my +1 to keep ELK instead of Heka.
ELK at this point is all but a golden standard. People know it, people use it, people troubleshoot it. If something goes wrong, I can go on Google, on IRC or mailing lists and expect someone to be able to help.
This is worth a lot to operators. OpenStack is already expensive enough, even if you don't take the vendor route.

Python is slow but you don't see OpenStack being rewritten in Go (ok, Swift, you're an exception). Python just has that massive community of developers that OpenStack can tap into. This is worth a lot and in that respect, I am happy that OpenStack is in Python, even if it is slow.

I'm not saying Heka is a bad decision or that it's an eccentric/exotic choice. But please let the decision be mindful of the people that will be deploying, configuring and supporting this. I don't believe a performance increase is worth it unless ELK was a real and painful bottleneck, which it is not.

My 0.02$CAD (definitely not worth a lot right now)

[1]: http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2016-January/083916.html

David Moreau Simard
Senior Software Engineer | Openstack RDO

dmsimard = [irc, github, twitter]

On Jan 13, 2016 7:20 AM, "Steven Dake (stdake)" <stdake at cisco.com<mailto:stdake at cisco.com>> wrote:
Hey folks,

I'd like to have a mailing list discussion about logistics of the ELKSTACK solution that Alicja has sorted out vs the Heka implementation that Eric is proposing.

My take on that is Eric wants to replace rsyslog and logstash with Heka.  That seems fine, but I want to make certain this doesn't happen in a way that leaves Kolla completely non-functional as we finish up Mitaka.  Liberty is the first version of Kolla people will deploy, and Mitaka is the first version of Kolla people will upgrade to, so making sure that we don't completely bust diagnostics (and I recognize diags as is are a little weak is critical).

It sounds like from my reading of the previous thread on this topic, unless there is some intractable problem, our goal is to use Heka to replace resyslog and logstash.  I'd ask inc0 (who did the rsyslog work) and Alicja (who did the elkstack work) to understand that replacement often happens on work that has already been done, and its not a "waste of time" so to speak as an evolution of the system.

Here are the deadlines:
http://docs.openstack.org/releases/schedules/mitaka.html

Let me help decode that for folks. March 4th is the final deadline to have a completely working solution based upon Heka if its to enter Mitaka.

Unlike previous releases of Kolla, I want to hand off release management of Kolla to the release management team, and to do that, we need to show a track record of hitting our deadlines and not adding features past feature freeze (the m3 milestone on March 4th).  In the past releases of Kolla we as a team were super loose on this requirement – going forward I prefer us being super strict.  Handing off to release management is a sign of maturity and would have an overall positive impact, assuming we can get the software written in time :)

Eric,

I'd like a plan and commitment to either hit Mitaka 3, or the N cycle.  It must work well first on Ansible, and second on Mesos.  If it doesn't work at all on Mesos, I could live with that -  I think the Mesos implementation will really not be ready for prime time until the middle or completion of the N cycle.  We lead with Ansible, and I don't see that changing any time soon – as a result, I want our Ansible deployment to be rock solid and usable out of the gate.  I don't expect to "Market" Mitaka Mesos (with the OpenStack foundation's help) as "production ready" but rather as "tech preview" and something for folks to evaluate.

Alicja,

I think a parallel development effort with the ELKSTACK that your working on makes sense.  In case the Heka development fails entirely, or misses Mitaka 3, I don't want us left lacking a diagnostics solution for Mitaka.  Diagnostics is my priority #2 for Kolla (#1 is upgrades).  Unfortunately what this means is you may end up wasting your time doing development that is replaced at the last minute in Mitaka 3, or later in the N cycle.  This is very common in software development (all the code I wrote for Magnum has been sadly replaced).  I know you can be a good team player here and take one for the team so to speak, but I'm asking you if you would take offense to this approach.

I'd like comments/questions/concerns on the above logistics approach discussed, and a commitment from Eric as to when he thinks all the code would land as one patch stream unit.

I'd also like to see the code come in as one super big patch stream (think 30 patches in the stream) so the work can be evaluated and merged as one unit.  I could also live with 2-3 different patch streams with 10-15 patches per stream, just so we can eval as a unit.  This means lots of rebasing on your part Eric ;-)  It also means a commitment from the core reviewer team to test and review this critical change.  If there isn't a core reviewer on board with this approach, please speak up now.

Regards
-steve


__________________________________________________________________________
OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
Unsubscribe: OpenStack-dev-request at lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe<http://OpenStack-dev-request@lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe>
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/attachments/20160113/b1d754eb/attachment.html>