Some feedback after going through cloudstack install

[BJO ERN <bj...@gmail.com>]

Hi guys,

some critique to the overall cloudstack project in hope to improve it.
I personally would wish that this projects dedicates more resources into
documentation or ironing out the product.
Some issues I had during the installation of cloudstack :

- Lack of a feature matrix (What constellation is supported)

- Feature un-parity for KVM hypervisor
  - Snapshots finally improving
  - no native iscsi suppoort

- SG in Advanced Zones implementation is really bad in 4.2
  - Virtually downgrading advanced mode into a basic mode
  - No NAT, internal LB service implemented

- Lack of documentation in certain areas is shocking
  - Really bad is the external loadbalancer part

- Most user issues during installation are coming from the clunky SSVM
  - Get rid of this VM and use processes on the hypervisor

- No userdata support in the GUI (filed CLOUDSTACK-5120)

- Sill no hyper-V support ...

I personally want to support the project, even with dev activities but in
the current state I;m stuck with cloudstack I'm not optimistic if it can
advance against other IAAS solutions.
I created already ticket for some issues I found.

Cheers,
Bjoern

Re: Some feedback after going through cloudstack install

[sebgoa <ru...@gmail.com>]

Bjoern, 

thanks for your feedback, couple comments in-line:

On Nov 10, 2013, at 8:12 AM, BJO ERN <bj...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi guys,
> 
> some critique to the overall cloudstack project in hope to improve it.
> I personally would wish that this projects dedicates more resources into
> documentation or ironing out the product.
> Some issues I had during the installation of cloudstack :
> 
> - Lack of a feature matrix (What constellation is supported)
> 
> - Feature un-parity for KVM hypervisor
>  - Snapshots finally improving
>  - no native iscsi support
> 

Agreed, we don't have a clear matrix

> - SG in Advanced Zones implementation is really bad in 4.2
>  - Virtually downgrading advanced mode into a basic mode
>  - No NAT, internal LB service implemented
> 
> - Lack of documentation in certain areas is shocking
>  - Really bad is the external loadbalancer part
> 

Agreed, we have moved the docs to their separate repo to make it easier to contribute. We are also looking into cleaning up a lot of the docs, or even starting from scratch.
We should see substantial improvement on this front in the coming months.

> - Most user issues during installation are coming from the clunky SSVM
>  - Get rid of this VM and use processes on the hypervisor

Agreed, there is some WIP on this:
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/CLOUDSTACK/QuickCloud

> 
> - No userdata support in the GUI (filed CLOUDSTACK-5120)
> 

I actually never used it via the GUI, but it's there in the API. If you use libcloud you can set the user data. I know of at least one cloud who created it's own UI and makes it possible to set userdata in the UI. That said it should not  be hard to do. I will keep an eye on that bug.

> - Sill no hyper-V support …
> 

It just got merged and will be in 4.3


> I personally want to support the project, even with dev activities but in
> the current state I;m stuck with cloudstack I'm not optimistic if it can
> advance against other IAAS solutions.
> I created already ticket for some issues I found.
> 

Thanks for filing tickets, this helps get better, please don't hesitate to send us patches including on the documentation. Any other feedback is great !

Cheers,

-sebastien


> Cheers,
> Bjoern