Open Stack

On 17/12/13 02:55, Tim Bell wrote:
>  
> 
> Specifying something as a bug needs to determine things like ‘what
> component should this be addressed in’ and describing the desired
> behaviour. Many of the comments from the survey describe the pain
> points, rather than the solutions. Upgrading is difficult, no mechanism
> to auto restart VMs on other hypervisors, monitoring frameworks,
> inconsistent options in command line tools and APIs, … equally, missing
> functional gaps do not fall well into the bug system.
> 
>  
> 
> I have received the feedback from operators when raising issues that
> they get the response ‘contributions are welcome’. Running an openstack
> cloud can be non-trivial, especially the big ones, and there is a need
> to appreciate that this effort is a significant part of the OpenStack
> community effort (along with the blogs, the documentation updates, the
> summit presentations).
> 
>  
> 
> I personally have a different proposal to Tristan (although I like his)…
> my proposal is that each program should have a session dedicated to
> user/operator needs at the start.  Between the UC, the volunteers to
> look at the survey comments and the user group ambassadors, we should be
> able to put together a set of pain points to be considered for the next
> release… solutions are up to the design teams.

While I think that having such a session in each program fits well with
"our" (being "the developers'") mentality and/or schedule, I feel that
it does not suit with that of operators.

This is because, as an operator, you typically don't just have problems
or feedback with one project.

Looking through the survey comments, it's likely that if those kind of
operators were attending summits, they'd have to attend a high fraction
of every such session.

In addition, points of pain can often be about the integration between
services, the consistency between them, or whole-of-project issues. Like
the fact our python clients all have different import lines, or the way
DNS works between Nova and Neutron, and so on.


The conversation of late has been leaning towards a happy scenario where
"operators" and "developers" come together in a session and the former
presents their concerns to the latter, who promptly go away and Fix All
The Things.

To be frank, having been on the "operator" side of the fence, and
participating in all of the frequent cursing, desk-slamming,
whiteboard-workarounding, nagios-alert-spam-receiving it takes to run an
OpenStack cloud ... I'm not sure we can let "operators" loose in such a
session without some kind of filter - it might put "developers" off
helping if we descent into full sysadmin rant :) But we do need to get
that feedback through somehow.

I have full appreciation for the session that the swift team ran with
the LINE guys at Hong Kong - that was seriously awesome to hear about
and we should be doing more of it. Though, I believe some of the value
came from the fact that it was an individual user stepping through their
entire requirements. Challenging the assumptions. Quite different from a
torrent of people in a room :)


The survey comments we've got are good, as is the plan Tim has put
together to wrangle them into a format where they perhaps can be taken
to developers as bugs, or blueprints - as Joe suggested. However, due to
the nature of the survey, they are most often brief, and surface-level.

I believe what "getting Operators in a room" can achieve for us is
providing that same kind of feedback, but with far greater depth than
can be achieved by a 200 pixel survey box.

A scenario I'd propose is to arrange something where we:
1. allow the full-descent into sysadmin rant, where people feel
comfortable to air each and every grievance they've had with any part of
OpenStack, recording all of this (in a manipulable, written format minus
cursing)
2. refuel our sysadmins with [beverage], while a small team attempts to
wrangle the mass of comment into something that can be discussed
3. bring back in the fearless operators, then have a more structured
discussion about which items are really the big ones - and dive deeper
into those so a full understanding is had of use-cases/'whys'/'whats'


at the conclusion of this session, we clean it up a bit and can pass it
on to our super-awesome "developers", who probably haven't had time to
make it to this multi-hour session, but will subsequently bow in awe of
all of the awesome suggestions and people who love their work :)

For thoroughness, this passing-to could happen at session-per-program as
suggested, or in some other asynchronous way.


Regards,



Tom


>  
> 
> Tim
> 
>  
> 
> *From:*Joe Gordon [mailto:joe.gordon0 at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* 16 December 2013 18:38
> *To:* Tristan Goode
> *Cc:* openstack at lists.openstack.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Openstack] Bringing focus to the Operators and Users at
> the next summit
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 10:36 PM, Tristan Goode <tristan at aptira.com
> <mailto:tristan at aptira.com>> wrote:
> 
>     I'm trying to establish a feedback loop "because" we (Operators,
>     Users, etc)
>     need to better present our actual real world, evidence based
>     Operator, User,
> 
>     and even other input like Sales and Marketing experiences back into the
> 
>     development teams. Much of this does and will come from the great
>     work of
>     the UC, the User surveys, and especially the folks that have
>     volunteered to
>     analyse the survey results. I'm hoping to build on the survey
>     analysis and
>     collaboratively and constructively focus that to present a blueprint or
>     roadmap with a "whole of OpenStack" scope. We can dig deeper into
>     the user
>     survey feedback and break beyond the bounds of the limited format of the
>     user survey to seed the discussion. For me, the most valuable session in
>     Hong Kong was the discussion led by Tim of the user survey. It was
>     however,
>     all too short.
> 
>  
> 
> Do you have any examples of what kind of feedback you would like to pass
> on to developers (I was unable to attend Tim's discussion of the user
> survey)?  Also just playing devils advocate here, but why not use our
> bug system to provide feedback?
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
>     > -----Original Message-----
>     > From: Sean Dague [mailto:sean at dague.net <mailto:sean at dague.net>]
>     > Sent: Saturday, 14 December 2013 3:02 AM
>     > To: openstack at lists.openstack.org
>     <mailto:openstack at lists.openstack.org>
>     > Subject: Re: [Openstack] Bringing focus to the Operators and Users
>     at the
>     > next
>     > summit
>     >
>     > So not that I don't think this is a worth while thing, because I
>     think it
>     > is. But instead
>     > of jumping to the solution of a User Day, it might be useful to
>     figure out
>     > what's
>     > attempting to be solved.
>     >
>     > Is it?
>     >
>     > 1) get Users together to share best practices among themselves?
>     Because
>     > lots of
>     > people have learned things, and want to bootstrap others.
>     >
>     > 2) get Users and Operators together to share best practices among
>     > themselves?
>     > Because ...
>     >
>     > 3) get Vendors and Users and Operators together? Because ...
>     >
>     > 4) get Developers and Users and Operators together? Because ....
>     >
>     > I think if you start with defining the Because ... part, then the
>     needed
>     > parties, then
>     > the odds of this being successful and useful to folks goes way up.
>     It also
>     > would give
>     > people attending a reasonable expectation of what they are going
>     to get
>     > out of it.
>     >
>     > Because it would be a shame to set up #1, if most people thought
>     they were
>     > getting
>     > #4 (which is basically what Lorin was proposing with his adopt a
>     developer
>     > idea),
>     > then people being disappointed that they didn't get what they
>     thought they
>     > were
>     > getting.
>     >
>     > The design summit works pretty well for the development community
>     because
>     > of
>     > how narrowly it is scoped. So a critical mass in each of those
>     rooms knows
>     > when it's
>     > getting off track and how to pull it back to something actionable
>     at the
>     > end.
>     >
>     >       -Sean
>     >
>     > On 12/13/2013 06:05 AM, Tristan Goode wrote:
>     > > I guess what I'm trying to say by "Users and Operators" covers
>     > > carriers and telcos. By User I mean folks that consume OpenStack
>     > > resources and by Operator I mean folks that supply OpenStack
>     > > resources. Maybe all can be called Users but whatever one calls it,
>     > > what I mean basically is Non-Developers actually working on and with
>     > > OpenStack. :)
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > > Cheers
>     > >
>     > > Tristan
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > > *From:*Kyle MacDonald [mailto:kyle.macdonald at gmail.com
>     <mailto:kyle.macdonald at gmail.com>
>     > > <mailto:kyle.macdonald at gmail.com <mailto:kyle.macdonald at gmail.com>>]
>     > > *Sent:* Thursday, 12 December 2013 7:02 PM
>     > > *To:* Tristan Goode
>     > > *Cc:* openstack at lists.openstack.org
>     <mailto:openstack at lists.openstack.org>
>     > > <mailto:openstack at lists.openstack.org
>     <mailto:openstack at lists.openstack.org>>
>     > > *Subject:* Re: [Openstack] Bringing focus to the Operators and Users
>     > > at the next summit
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > > Tristan
>     > >
>     > > I like this idea and agree it should be a priority. I do suggest the
>     > > focus area be expanded (or a second focus day) to accommodate
>     carriers
>     > > and telcos and their operations needs (they are real operators).
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > > There is a ton of work being done by the leading telco's around NFV
>     > > and SDN (many in emerging use cases) using OpenStack. I can very
>     > > easily see "operations" being a killer issue and something that
>     should
>     > > be more broadly addressed. Last summit the forum for that track of
>     > > discussions was by a vendor - next summit this area should be made
>     > > more neutral and inclusive.
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > > Kyle
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > > On Dec 11, 2013, at 10:55 PM, Tristan Goode <tristan at aptira.com
>     <mailto:tristan at aptira.com>
>     > > <mailto:tristan at aptira.com <mailto:tristan at aptira.com>>> wrote:
>     > >
>     > >     G'day OpenStackLand,
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >     I have an idea for the next summit to put forward...
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >     Like we have the various project design summit session days
>     at the
>     > >     summits, I think it'd be really useful to have an Operators and
>     > >     Users day at the very start of the next summit (and
>     hopefully all of
>     > >     them in future if it works out). So far at the last 4
>     summits I've
>     > >     attended, from the users and operators point of view we've
>     had a rag
>     > >     tag bunch of disconnected panels and 40 minute sessions that
>     really
>     > >     don't get anywhere much and don’t make it to any sort of plan or
>     > >     worthwhile result. This proposed "Operators and Users" day
>     will be
>     > >     run like the design summit session days where all of us that
>     have to
>     > >     deal with the consequences of the software development of this
>     > >     project sit in a room and work the issues. The goal is to
>     present
>     > >     real world, evidence based Operator, User, and even other
>     input like
>     > >     Sales and Marketing experiences back into the development teams.
>     > >     Maybe we might even have our own "Operators and Users"
>     lounge too.
>     > > :-P
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >     Cheers
>     > >
>     > >     Tristan
>     > >
>     > >
>     > >
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>     >
>     >
>     > --
>     > Sean Dague
>     > http://dague.net
> 
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>  
> 
> 
> 
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