4.0 Ticket Review and 20200512 Status Update

[Jordan West <jw...@apache.org>]

Hi Everyone,

This week's status update is below but we (Josh, Jon M, and myself) thought
it was important for us all to take a closer look at which parts of the
release cycle we've assigned different tickets to so we can get a better
idea of how close we truly are to releasing beta1 and what work is left
between then and rc/ga. With the release lifecycle document (
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/CASSANDRA/Release+Lifecycle) the
community agreed upon previously in mind, we looked at all outstanding
tickets.

In many cases, tickets were already assigned to where we would have
expected them to be based on that document and the ticket's
perceived severity. In a few cases, tickets' assigned stage in the cycle
was different from what the document outlined. In cases where we felt it
was obvious we have reached out to those involved and updated it
accordingly. Those tickets fell primarily into these categories:

* Client API / Configuration / Other user interfaces - As a user
interfaces, these should be stabilized before the end of the alpha stage
* Testing Epic - should be completed by the end of the beta stage
* Changes in RC - We shouldn't be making substantial changes in a Release
Candidate but documentation, etc is ok in this stage in the cycle.

Of the remaining tickets, some we felt were important for the community to
discuss on a case by case basis as we have with other larger changes in the
past. In particular, as we look at these, we think it is important for the
community to think about whether or not we should block the 4.0 release on
them or if they would be well suited to a subsequent release. One that we
feel confident will have a shorter cycle than 4.0.

Please look through them, especially if you are involved in one. We
encourage all discussion to happen outside this thread: either in JIRA or
in a separate [DISCUSS] thread on the mailing list. Questions I found
helpful while reviewing myself:  1) Would you block the release over this
ticket? 2) Would you prioritize this ticket over testing? 3) Does fixing
this ticket make 4.0 a more stable release?

Transient Replication:
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-15670: Transient
Replication: unable to insert data when the keyspace is configured with the
SimpleStrategy
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-14697: Transient
Replication 4.0 pre-release followup work
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-14404: Transient
Replication & Cheap Quorums: Decouple storage requirements from consensus
group size using incremental repair

Repair & Streaming:
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-15665: StreamManager
should clearly differentiate between "initiator" and "receiver" sessions
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-14939: fix some
operational holes in incremental repair
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-15406: Add command to
show the progress of data streaming and index build

Indexing:
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-15533: Don't allocate
unneeded MergeIterator in OnDiskToken#iterator
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-13606: Improve handling
of 2i initialization failures

Test Tooling:
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-15624: Avoid lazy
initializing shut down instances when trying to send them messages

Other Features / Improvements:
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-15241: Virtual table to
expose current running queries
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-15211: Remove
BaseIterator.stopChild
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-14793: Improve system
table handling when losing a disk when using JBOD
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-14694: add latency sample
for speculative read repair writes
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-14361: Allow
SimpleSeedProvider to resolve multiple IPs per DNS name
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-13994: Remove COMPACT
STORAGE internals before 4.0 release
- https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-2848: Make the Client API
support passing down timeouts (This one has been discussed before but given
its current status and being interface related it could block a beta1
release)

Ok, on with the regular status update:

[Board]
https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/RapidBoard.jspa?rapidView=355

[Tickets that Need Attention]
https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/RapidBoard.jspa?rapidView=355&projectKey=CASSANDRA&quickFilter=1723&quickFilter=1719

There are 6 tickets in alpha that need attention and 18 in beta. The alpha
tickets are either flaky tests or configuration changes. The beta tickets
are primarily grouped into test plans and known bugs.

[Needs Reviewer]
https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/RapidBoard.jspa?rapidView=355&projectKey=CASSANDRA&quickFilter=1661&quickFilter=1659

3 tickets are looking for reviewers, although only one is not related to
Transient Replication.

[Alpha Status]

There are currently 17 tickets not marked done that are assigned to alpha.
They are primarily compromised of interface changes and flaky tests. This
number is higher than last week as we revisited which tickets affected user
interfaces and re-assigned them to alpha from beta.

[Beta Status]

There are 38 tickets not marked done that are assigned to beta. The consist
primarily of known bugs, test plans, and improvements listed above.

[RC Status]

There are 30 tickets not marked done that are assigned to rc. *If you are
working on a ticket that is assigned to rc please consider if it should be
re-assigned to alpha or beta based on the Release Lifecycle wiki linked
above.*

[Cumulative Flow Diagram]
https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/RapidBoard.jspa?rapidView=355&projectKey=CASSANDRA&view=reporting&chart=cumulativeFlowDiagram&swimlane=939&swimlane=936&swimlane=931&column=1505&column=1506&column=1514&column=1509&column=1512&column=1507&from=2020-04-07&to=2020-04-28


Thanks!
Jordan