[all][tc] Relmgt team position on release cadence

Arnaud arnaud.morin at gmail.com
Mon Nov 8 22:57:54 UTC 2021


Hey,
I'd like to add my 2 cents.

It's hard to upgrade a region, so when it comes to upgrade multiples regions, it's even harder.

Some operators also have their own downstream patchs / extensions / drivers which make the upgrade process more complex, so it take more time (for all reasons already given in the thread, need to update the CI, the tools, the doc, the people, etc).

One more thing is about consistency, when you have to manage multiple regions, it's easier if all of them are pretty identical. Human operation are always the same, and can eventually be automated.
This leads to keep going on with a fixed version of OpenStack to run the business.
When scaling, you (we) always chose security and consistency.

Also, Julia mentioned something true about contribution from operators. It's difficult for them for multiple reasons:
- pushing upstream is a process, which need to be taken into account when working on an internal fix.
- it's usually quicker to push downstream because it's needed. When it comes to upstream, it's challenged by the developers (and it's good), so it take time and can be discouraging.
- operators are not running master, but a stable release. Bugs on stables could be fixed differently than on master, which could also be discouraging.
- writing unit tests is a job, some tech operators are not necessarily developers, so this could also be a challenge.

All of these to say that helping people which are proposing a patch is a good thing. And as far as I can see, upstream developers are helping most of the time, and we should keep and encourage such behavior IMHO.

Finally, I would also vote for less releases or LTS releases (but it looks heavier to have this). I think this would help keeping up to date with stables and propose more patches from operators.

Cheers,
Arnaud.


Le 8 novembre 2021 20:43:18 GMT+01:00, Julia Kreger <juliaashleykreger at gmail.com> a écrit :
>On Mon, Nov 8, 2021 at 10:44 AM Thierry Carrez <thierry at openstack.org> wrote:
>>
>> Ghanshyam Mann wrote:
>> > [...]
>> > Thanks Thierry for the detailed write up.
>> >
>> > At the same time, a shorter release which leads to upgrade-often pressure but
>> > it will have fewer number of changes/features, so make the upgrade easy and
>> > longer-release model will have more changes/features that will make upgrade more
>> > complex.
>>
>> I think that was true a few years ago, but I'm not convinced that still
>> holds. We currently have a third of the changes volume we had back in
>> 2015, so a one-year release in 2022 would contain far less changes than
>> a 6-month release from 2015.
>
>I concur. Also, in 2015, we were still very much in a "move fast" mode
>of operation as a community.
>
>> Also, thanks to our testing and our focus on stability, the pain linked
>> to the amount of breaking changes in a release is now negligible
>> compared to the basic pain of going through a 1M-core deployment and
>> upgrading the various pieces... every 6 months. I've heard of multiple
>> users claiming it takes them close to 6 months to upgrade their massive
>> deployments to a new version. So when they are done, they have to start
>> again.
>>
>> --
>> Thierry Carrez (ttx)
>>
>
>I've been hearing the exact same messaging from larger operators as
>well as operators in environments where they are concerned about
>managing risk for at least the past two years. These operators have
>indicated it is not uncommon for the upgrade projects which consume,
>test, certify for production, and deploy to production take *at least*
>six months to execute. At the same time, they are shy of being the
>ones to also "find all of the bugs", and so the project doesn't
>actually start until well after the new coordinated release has
>occurred. Quickly they become yet another version behind with this
>pattern.
>
>I suspect it is really easy for us as a CI focused community to think
>that six months is plenty of time to roll out a fully updated
>deployment which has been fully tested in every possible way. Except,
>these operators are often trying to do just that on physical hardware,
>with updated firmware and operatings systems bringing in new variables
>with every single change which may ripple up the entire stack. These
>operators then have to apply the lessons they have previously learned
>once they have worked through all of the variables. In some cases this
>may involve aspects such as benchmarking, to ensure they don't need to
>make additional changes which need to be factored into their
>deployment, sending them back to the start of their testing. All while
>thinking of phrases like "business/mission critical".
>
>I guess this means I'm in support of revising the release cycle. At
>the same time, I think it would be wise for us to see if we can learn
>from these operators the pain points they experience, the process they
>leverage, and ultimately see if there are opportunities to spread
>knowledge or potentially tooling. Or maybe even get them to contribute
>their patches upstream. Not that all of these issues are easily solved
>with any level of code, but sometimes they can include contextual
>disconnects and resolving those are just as important as shipping a
>release, IMHO.
>
>-Julia
>
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