Welcome to the weekly post of the RackN blog recap of all things SRE. If you have any ideas for this recap or would like to include content please contact us at info@rackn.com or tweet Rob (@zehicle) or RackN (@rackngo).
SRE Items of the Week
Continuous Discussions (#c9d9) Episode 66: Scaling Agile and DevOps in the Enterprise Watch Rob Hirschfeld in this Electric Cloud Podcast held on 4/11.
On the Continuous Discussions (#c9d9) podcast the discussion was on Scaling Agile and DevOps in the Enterprise.
- What’s between scaling Agile and scaling DevOps?
- What are some learnings and patterns for scaling Agile, that can be applied for starting and scaling a DevOps transformation in the enterprise?
Podcast Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uffUoX-O3g8
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Rob Hirschfeld on Containers, Private Clouds, GIFEE, and the Remaining “Underlay Problem”
Rob Hirschfeld Q&A with Gene Kim on ITRevolution
INTRO
Back in October of 2016, I was at OpenStack Conference in Barcelona and ran into a long-time friend, Rob Hirschfeld. He surprised me by talking about a problem domain that we have had discussions about for years, reframing it as “the data center underlay problem.”
His provocative statement was that while OpenStack solves many problems, it didn’t address the fundamental challenges of how to run things like OpenStack on actual physical infrastructure. This is a problem domain that is being radically redefined by the container ecosystem.
This is a problem that Rob has been tirelessly working on for nearly a decade, and it was interesting to get his perspective on the emerging ecosystem, including OpenStack, Kubernetes, Mesos, containers, private clouds in general (which include Azure Stack), etc. I thought it would be useful to share this with everyone.
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Need PXE? Try out this Cobbler Replacement
Rob Hirschfeld Blog (https://robhirschfeld.com)
INTRO
We wanted to make open basic provisioning API-driven, secure, scalable and fast. So we carved out the Provision & DHCP services as a stand alone unit from the larger open Digital Rebar project. While this Golang service lacks orchestration, this complete service is part of Digital Rebar infrastructure and supports the discovery boot process, templating, security and extensive image library (Linux, ESX, Windows, … ) from the main project.
TL;DR: FIVE MINUTES TO REPLACE COBBLER? YES.
The project APIs and CLIs are complete for all provisioning functions with good Swagger definitions and docs. After all, it’s third generation capability from the Digital Rebar project. The integrated UX is still evolving.
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Open Source Collaboration: The Power of No & Interoperability
Christopher Ferris, IBM OpenTech
INTRO
It’s a common misconception that open source collaboration means saying YES to all ideas; however, the reality of successful projects is the opposite.
Permissive open source licenses drive a delicate balance for projects. On one hand, projects that adopt permissive licenses should be accepting of contributions to build community and user base. On the other, maintainers need to adopt a narrow focus to ensure project utility and simplicity. If the project’s maintainers are too permissive, the project bloats and wanders without a clear purpose. If they are too restrictive then the project fails to build community.
It is human nature to say yes to all collaborators, but that can frustrate core developers and users.
For that reason, stronger open source projects have a clear, focused, shared vision. Historically, that vision was enforced by a benevolent dictator for life (BDFL); however, recent large projects have used a consensus of project elders to make the task more sustainable. These roles serve a critical need: they say “no” to work that does not align with the project’s mission and vision. The challenge of defining that vision can be a big one, but without a clear vision, it’s impossible for the community to sustain growth because new contributors can dilute the utility of projects. [author’s note: This is especially true of celebrity projects like OpenStack or Kubernetes that attract “shared glory” contributors]
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Rob Hirschfeld and Greg Althaus are preparing for a series of upcoming events where they are speaking or just attending. If you are interested in meeting with them at these events please email info@rackn.com.
DockerCon 2017 : April 17 – 20, 2017 in Austin, TX
DevOpsDays Austin : May 4-5, 2017 in Austin TX
OpenStack Summit : May 8 – 11, 2017 in Boston, MA
- OpenStack and Kubernetes. Combining the best of both worlds – Kubernetes Day
Interop ITX : May 15 – 19, 2017 in Las Vegas, NV
- Open Source IT Summit – Tuesday, May 16, 9:00 – 5:00pm : Rob Hirschfeld to speak
Gluecon : May 24 – 25, 2017 in Denver, CO
- Surviving Day 2 in Open Source Hybrid Automation – May 23, 2017 : Rob Hirschfeld and Greg Althaus
OTHER NEWSLETTERS
SRE Weekly (@SREWeekly) – Issue #67