Difference between revisions of "Valence"

Revision as of 00:55, 9 September 2016

Rack Scale Design: Composable Hardware

Rack Scale Design allows considering compute, storage, and networking as disaggregated resources that can be composed on the fly to meet various needs in a data center/cloud. Disaggregation, in addition to allowing hardware refresh at different rates for each of storage, compute, and networking, supports more efficient resource utilization. Imagine a cloud that grew and shrank to meet usage by virtue of being connected to a rack that allowed such dynamic composition and release, where you might compose a node with copious storage or another that provides pure compute horsepower. Intel[5], Dell, Lenovo, HPE [7] among others are interested in composable infrastructure.

To bring such a vision to light, the compute industry collaborated to standardize and define the RESTful RedFish API[1]. Intel PodManager implements the RedFish API. The API, in addition to supporting composition and release of nodes, supports managing them (power-on/off), discovering hardware capabilities, and even collecting advanced telemetry.

Using software that implements the RedFish API, one could construct nodes to deploy an OpenStack Cloud and with drivers for Nova and Ironic grow and shrink the cloud to meet utilization needs. Hardware flavors for the undercloud could be defined no different from VM flavors. This will take us closer to true Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI).

DMTF RedFish

The Distributed Management Task Force, Inc (DMTF) [2] creates open manageability standards spanning diverse emerging and traditional IT infrastructures including cloud, virtualization, network, servers and storage. DMTF Redfish™ is an open industry standard specification and schema that specifies a RESTful interface and utilizes JSON and OData to help customers integrate and manage today's scale out hardware solutions, which are very different from the enterprise hardware of the past. Its sponsors are Broadcom, Dell, Emerson, HPE, INspur, Lenovo, MIcrosoft, SuperMicro, VMWare, and Intel among others. For more details refer to [3] and [4].

A Wannabe OpenStack Big Tent Project

A brief digression to talk names! Project name not currently finalized/blessed. Rack Scale Controller, RSC for short, is our most generic name. Others we have explored: Plasma. Current leading contender: Valence. Let us know if you have an aversion to Valence as a name and if so please suggest an alternative.

What is Rack Scale Controller ? It really is a collection of all things Rack Scale Control, from an user interface to help compose and view nodes, to supporting launch of an OpenStack cloud using your favorite deployment tool, a place to register blueprints, a banner under which to assemble a growing community interested in this functionality, a place to hold Nova and Ironic drivers and Horizon plugins to support growing/shrinking clouds dynamically, viewing Rack Scale flavors, and more.

• Project RSC registration [6]

Architecture: Setting up under-cloud

rack scale controller interactions

Source Code

• Github https://github.com/mganguli/RSC

Look Who is Interested!

1. shuquan
2. octopuszhang
3. kevinshu96
4. malinib
5. mritikka

Weekly Meetings

Might Thursday 5 pm PDT work? In IRC we could determine the most popular time slot.

Meeting Minutes

Logs of meetings past.

Agenda for Next Meeting

Need this to be editable.

Licensing

Apache License v2

FAQs

1. Do I need a Rack to develop and test Rack Scale Controller features?

No, you could get by using a simulator. Please contact us. But to deploy your cloud you will need real hardware.

1. Where can I learn more?

Come join our meeting. Check out the references below. Join us on IRC.

References

[1] https://www.dmtf.org/standards/redfish

[2] https://www.dmtf.org/

[3] https://www.dmtf.org/sites/default/files/SPMF%20Introduction%20to%20Redfish%20May%202016.pdf

[4] https://www.dmtf.org/sites/default/files/standards/documents/DSP0266_1.0.4.pdf

[5] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/intel-rack-scale-architecture.html

[6] https://review.openstack.org/#/c/341966/

[7] https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/hpe-touts-composable-infrastructure-with-synergy/2015/12/