Apache CloudStack Weekly News: 22 April 2013

[Joe Brockmeier <jz...@zonker.net>]

Hi all, 

Trying something a bit different this week, and emailing the text of the
weekly news to the mailing lists. We have been doing the weekly news for
several months now, but published only on the blog
(https://blogs.apache.org/cloudstack/). 

You can find this week's here: 

https://blogs.apache.org/cloudstack/entry/apache_cloudstack_weekly_news_22

If you'd like to help out with CloudStack, but aren't a developer, I
could use more hands on the weekly news. Info on contributing is at the
bottom of the news here. Suggestions welcome. Thanks!

Joe

# # # 

Apache CloudStack Weekly News: 22 April 2013

This time around, we have two release VOTEs in progress, which means
that 4.1.0 is just about out the door. The CloudStack Collaboration
Conference 2013 [1]has been announced for June 23rd through 25th.
You'll also want to check in on the discussions about the length of the
release cycle, Chip Childers and David Nalley appearing on FLOSS
Weekly, and much more.

A lot has happened since the last issue of the CloudStack Weekly News,
and not just because the community's been busy – we missed getting last
week's issue out. Sorry about that! If you'd like to see consistent
weekly delivery, check the end of the newsletter to see how you can
help.

Major Discussions
========================================================================

In this section, we summarize some of the more interesting discussions
taking place in the CloudStack community. While we try to pull out the
discussions that are "don't miss" discussions to anyone who's involved
in using or contributing to CloudStack, it's a really good idea to
[2]make sure you're subscribed to the mailing lists and follow along.

## Release Schedule

Animesh Chaturvedi [3]started a discussion last week about the release
schedule for 4.2.0, trying to nail down the specific dates for feature
freeze, docs freeze, etc. That was [4]accompanied by a question of
whether we should consider a six-month cycle. Ultimately, no resolution
was reached on the schedule.

Animesh has [5]started a new thread to discuss the release cycle.

## Easier Simple Installs

David has [6]started a conversation on dev@ about the ease, or lack
thereof, of installing CloudStack. David says, "what I want to do is
get rid of sections 2-4 of the quick install guide, and replace it with
- 'run this one or two lines worth of commands'
([7]http://s.apache.org/runbook)." David describes what he'd like to
see:

    The all-in-one installation process I'd like to see:

    Install your host OS Install an meta-RPM/Deb that either (installs
    everything, or alternatively configures a repo - or just installs
    the repo and the stuff I need to install with) Run a command that
    activates one of these config tools - configures the machine,
    installs the packages I need, and gets me to the point where I'm
    ready to login and go through the beautiful new user gui setup
    stuff.

No further comments on this so far.

## Developing a Storage Backup Object Store Plugin Framework

Min Chin [8]has proposed a storage backup object store plugin framework
that would "allow CloudStack to systematically manage and configure
various types of backup data stores from different vendors, like NFS,
S3, Swift, etc." Specifically, Min says:

    With this new plugin framework, we would like to achieve following
    functionalities:

    1. Support different object store providers in a uniform and
    pluggable fashion.
    2. Enable region wide object backup using S3-like object store.
    3. Provide pluggable data motion strategies to handle data transfer
    from one data store to another data store.
    4. Provide a scalable cache storage framework while moving data
    between primary storage and backup storage for certain hypervisor
    needs.
    5. Support flexible combinations of primary storage, secondary
    storage and hypervisors, such as (NFS, NFS, Xen), (NF3, S3, Vmware),
    (ISCSI, Swift, KVM), ..., etc.

The FS is [9]on the wiki, and Min says in a follow-up that there's a
plan to "provide a sample plugin implementation" for the work.

With regards to compatibility concerns, Edison Su [10]responds that
existing APIs "can still be wired to new code" so that they continue to
work, but "we can mark them as deprecated in the API document." Edison
also notes that it can co-exist with the existing deployments and
upgrades from pre-4.2.0 versions to 4.2.0 if the feature is accepted.

## VOTEs for 4.1.0 and 4.0.2

After a couple of false starts, it looks like the third time is the
charm for the 4.0.2 release. Joe Brockmeier [11]started the third
voting round on Saturday 20 April, and it has quite a few +1 (binding)
votes so far. Unless -1'ed by Tuesday morning, it will be ready for
release.

Chip has also [12]started the first vote for 4.1.0, which will be open
for 72 hours – assuming no show-stopping defects are found, and it
garners at least 3 +1 PMC votes. Note that everyone in the CloudStack
community is encouraged to test out the release candidate and cast a
vote, regardless of whether the vote is "binding" or not. More testing
is always better, and an informed -1 from a non-PMC member isn't going
to be ignored when deciding whether to release or not.

## Domain Admin Limitations

Pranav Saxena has [13]raised a discussion about the limitations for
DOMAIN admins, and wonders "why hasn't the domain -admin been given the
privilege of creating sub-child domains himself? Are there any
concerns/threats because of which the current architecture doesn't
serve this purpose?" Alena Prokharchyk responds that there [14]may be a
feature request matching Pranav's concerns and suggests checking its
status. This might be a good feature/improvement to see in 4.2.0 if
there's not already work afoot.

CloudStack Planet - Posts from the CloudStack Community
======================================================================== 

* [15]FLOSS Weekly Interview on Apache CloudStack: Chip and David
  appeared on FLOSS Weekly on April 10th. If you missed the live
  show, be sure to checkout the [16]video.

* [17]4.0.2 Testing Procedure: Sebastien Goasguen has [18]put
  together a screencast for testing the 4.0.2 release that also might
  be worth looking over for folks interested in testing any
  CloudStack release.

* [19]Google Summer of Code with CloudStack: Sebastien has also
  [20]put together a slide show about contributing to the Google
  Summer of Code (GSoC) with CloudStack.

* [21]Knife CloudStack plugin 0.0.14 has been released: Sander Botman
  writes about the latest release of the CloudStack plugin. David has
  also [22]written about the new knife-cloudstack plugin.

* [23]To REST or not to REST: Sebastien tackles the question, "is the
  CloudStack API RESTful?" The short answer is "[24]the CloudStack
  API is RESTlike but not RESTful since it is only based on the GET
  method. Being an http based API that can return JSON does not make
  it a RESTfull API. This should not be seen as negative criticism
  but just a clarification." Read the rest for the full scoop.

* [25]Zone X is Not Ready to Launch Console Proxy Yet: Wido den
  Hollander writes about an odd error that he troubleshot to find an
  unlikely culprit.

Upcoming Events
======================================================================== 

* [26]LinuxFest Northwest is being held in Bellingham, Washington
  from 27 April to 28 April.
     + Mark Hinkle is presenting the [27]Hitchhiker's Guide to Open
       Source Cloud Computing on Saturday 27 April at 11:00.
     + David Nalley is presenting [28]Building IaaS Clouds with
       Apache CloudStack on Saturday 27 April at 1:30.

* Storage in Apache CloudStack being held by the [29]CloudStack SF
  Bay Area Users Group on April 30, 2013 @ Citrix Conference Center,
  sign up on the Meetup.com Website.

* [30]Build a Cloud Day CloudCon San Francisco being held at the
  South San Francisco Conference Center on 15 May.

* [31]CloudStack Collaboration Conference 2013 is being held from 23
  June to 25 June in Santa Clara, CA at the Santa Clara Convention
  Center. See the [32]Call for Proposals if you're interested in
  speaking!

If you want to to check in on events related to Apache CloudStack, see
the [33]Lanyard Page for the Apache CloudStack topic.

Jira
======================================================================== 

With the 4.0.2 and 4.1.0 VOTES in process, it's time to start looking
at bugs against [34]4.1.1 and [35]4.2.0.

At the moment, bugs against 4.1.0 haven't been re-assigned to 4.1.1.
This means that the bug counts for 4.1.1 are much lower than they
should be. Taking into account the actual number of bugs, we're looking
at one blocker bug, two critical bugs, 114 major bugs, and 25 minor.

For 4.2.0, we have:
  * 5 [36]blocker bugs for 4.2.0.
  * 34 [37]critical bugs for 4.2.0.
  * 263 [38]major bugs for 4.2.0.
  * 35 [39]minor bugs for 4.2.0.

New Committers and PMC Members
======================================================================== 

    * Bruno Demion was invited to become a committer and [40]has
      accepted.

    * Go Chiba was invited to become a committer and [41]has accepted.

    * Prasanna Santhanam was invited to become a PMC member and [42]has
      accepted.

  Please join us in congratulating all of the new committers and PMC
  members!

Contributing to the Weekly News
========================================================================

Want to keep reading the CloudStack Weekly News? Many hands make light
work, but having only one editor means getting the weekly news out
every week is a "best effort" activity. A healthy community publication
needs several contributors to ensure weekly issues go out on time.

If you have an event, discussion, or other item to contribute to the
Weekly News, you can add it directly to the [43]wiki by editing the
issue you want your item to appear in. (The next week's issue is
created before the current issue is published - so at any time there
should be at least one issue ready to edit.)

Alternatively, you can send a note to the
marketing@cloudstack.apache.org mailing list with a subject including
[44]News: description of topic or email the newsletter editor directly
(jzb at apache.org), again with the subject [45]News: description of
topic. Please include a link to the discussion in the mailing list
archive or Web page with details of the event, etc.

References
========================================================================

   1. http://markmail.org/message/uqj2nazm6dcpg7h7
   2. http://cloudstack.apache.org/mailing-lists.html
   3. http://markmail.org/message/6suq2fhltdvgvcxd
   4. http://markmail.org/message/cp23tewephjuxv7f
   5. http://markmail.org/message/3ctdwor5hfbpa3vx
   6. http://markmail.org/message/zvo3t26zjvedblah
   7. http://s.apache.org/runbook
   8. http://markmail.org/message/cspb6xweeupfvpit
   9.
   https://cwiki.apache.org/CLOUDSTACK/storage-backup-object-store-plugin-framework.html
  10. http://markmail.org/message/sstnaimx62mnyles
  11. http://markmail.org/message/nfe2lyxj4mjsmxdb
  12. http://markmail.org/thread/vfcje3fs5ilvm47c
  13. http://markmail.org/message/ucxsapyannat2z6b
  14. http://markmail.org/message/nyzosjot2ov5lb7m
  15.
  http://www.chipchilders.com/blog/2013/4/10/floss-weekly-interview-on-apache-cloudstack.html
  16. http://twit.tv/show/floss-weekly/247
  17. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvgIkF1e1QE
  18. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvgIkF1e1QE
  19.
  http://buildacloud.org/blog/254-google-summer-of-code-2013-with-cloudstack.html
  20.
  http://buildacloud.org/blog/254-google-summer-of-code-2013-with-cloudstack.html
  21.
  http://www.cupfighter.net/index.php/2013/04/knife-cloudstack-plugin-0-0-14-has-been-released-but-what-does-this-mean/
  22.
  http://buildacloud.org/blog/252-a-new-version-of-the-knife-cloudstack-plugin-appears.html
  23. http://buildacloud.org/blog/253-to-rest-or-not-to-rest.html
  24. http://buildacloud.org/blog/253-to-rest-or-not-to-rest.html
  25.
  http://blog.widodh.nl/2013/04/cloudstack-zone-x-is-is-not-ready-to-launch-console-proxy-yet/
  26. http://linuxfestnorthwest.org/
  27.
  http://linuxfestnorthwest.org/content/hitchikers-guide-open-source-cloud-computing
  28.
  http://linuxfestnorthwest.org/content/building-iaas-clouds-apache-cloudstack
  29.
  http://www.meetup.com/CloudStack-SF-Bay-Area-Users-Group/events/108916562/
  30.
  http://buildacloud.org/about-diy-cloud-computing/cloud-events/viewevent/148-build-a-cloud-day-cloudcon-san-francisco-ca.html
  31. http://cloudstackcollab.net/
  32. http://cloudstackcollab.net/CfP/
  33. http://lanyrd.com/topics/apache-cloudstack/
  34.
  https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CLOUDSTACK/fixforversion/12324122
  35.
  https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CLOUDSTACK/fixforversion/12323906
  36. http://is.gd/blocker_acs420
  37. http://is.gd/critical_acs420
  38. http://is.gd/major_acs420
  39. http://is.gd/minor_acs420
  40.
  http://markmail.org/search/list:org.apache.incubator.cloudstack-dev+New+Committer:+Bruno+Demion+%28a.k.a+milamber%29
  41. http://markmail.org/message/5yn6fbeim33bm7d3
  42. http://markmail.org/message/iifnhhkfext3gbve
  43.
  https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/CLOUDSTACK/CloudStack+Weekly+News
  44. file://localhost/confluence/display/CLOUDSTACK/News
  45. file://localhost/confluence/display/CLOUDSTACK/News