Interoperability

The Elephants in the Room & What We're Doing About Them

Chris Hoge, OpenStack FoundationMark T. Voelker, VMware

A (Very) Brief Intro To DefCore• September 2012, Foundation bylaws required a “Faithful

Implementation Test Suite” to ensure “compatibility and interoperability” for products.

• DefCore working group was founded in Fall of 2013 to fulfill the FITS mandate.

• 1st guideline approved in Winter of 2014– Placed into effect in Spring 2015

• 5 Guidelines since then (newest: 2015.07, 2016.01)• Guidelines consist of:

– Components: A product, in this case Compute, Storage, or a combination: Platform.

– Capabilities: defined by a grouping of tests, and chosen against a set of 12 criteria

– Designated Sections: upstream code that must be running, determined by the working group in collaboration with the technical leaders of the projects.

The Problem• Good news! OpenStack is rich and extremely flexible!• Bad news! OpenStack is rich and extremely flexible!

• Lots of ways to configure things• In same cases, more than one way to do things• Policy isn’t discoverable• Rapid release cadence = products built on many

versions are in production• What does [$myfav_sdk | $myfav_tool | $myfav_app]

actually support vs what’s actually in the clouds I might want to use?

• Why does Shade have to exist?

Some of the Biggest Challenges Today

• Image operations• Networking (particularly external connectivity)• Policy and configuration discovery• API iteration vs tool/SDK release cadence

– Also, different approaches to API lifecycle among projects...some projects are still on v1, others are on v3, some adopting microversions, some not yet

• Provability– Implicit test requirements– Finding good data on what’s widely used

• Project documentation: – Are Zones ok in Nova? – Is it ok to expose Glance v1 to end users? – Is Keystone v2 really “SUPPORTED” or is it really unmaintained?

Some of the Biggest Challenges Today• Discoverability:

– Policy– Versions– Image formats– What does a cloud provide, and how?

• Lack of awareness about how DefCore:– Among devs: how should interop influence

technical choices– Among consumers: what DefCore means for them

• Mapping of capabilities to APIs and how it should guide application development.

What We’re Doing About It• We exist! By forcing a measurable standard, we can find

the problems in that standard and iterate to improve it.• Working with vendors to understand the challenges of

downstream deployment.• Working with developers to improve the upstream APIs

and usage models.• Working with QA to improve testing.• Collaborating with the technical community to identify

key issues that real clouds, both public and private, face.• Providing meaning for the OpenStack logo when it

appears on a commercial product.

DefCore Is Helping Make Conversations Happen

• Awareness is half the battle• Examples of outcomes or discussions in progress:

– Nova/Glance image proxy discussions and potential deprecations

– Consolidation and discovery for image upload APIs– Keystone v2 API deprecation– Glance v1 API deprecation– get-me-a-network in Neutron– TC/Nova passing resolution clarifying intent of Nova

drivers for product builders

What’s New In DefCore• Networking capabilities are advisory, moving to

required later this year• Keystone v2 being dropped due to deprecation,

more focus on adding v3 capabilities• Refstack.openstack.org becoming the clearinghouse

for test info• Ability to run tests via tempest plugin interface ==

expanded possibilities for Swift, Heat, etc.• Moving beyond the Nova proxies to direct API calls

for images, storage, and networking.

What’s DefCore Doing Next?• Coming soon: DefCore report on top interop issues

– Periodically updated so we can measure progress on big barriers– Intended to drive conversation and accountability

• More work on tests– Drafting interoperabiliy test spec to help technical contributors

understand what makes a good interoperability test– Working with QA community to reduce unnecessary admin

credential use

• Beginning discussion of vertical interop Guidelines– E.g. for use cases like NFV where requirements may be a bit

different than general purpose compute clouds

• Other stuff?

Some Resources• OpenStack Interop Homepage• DefCore Wiki• An Introduction to DefCore (“The

Doctor Who Deck”)• DefCore Committee Mailing List • #openstack-defcore on IRC• DefCore Git Repository• Tempest Configuration Guide

What Do You Think The Issues Are?• Submit your test results to RefStack!• Add your two cents to this etherpad• Come to the DefCore working session

(Thursday, 9:50am, Hilton Salon J)• Talk to project team developers,

product companies, and other users here in Austin

• Grab one of us this week or on IRC anytime!

Questions?

ThankYou