CERN, OpenStack Keep Resonance Cascades at Bay
Tim Bell preparing to get his OpenStack on |
"When we're running a complex fabric of apps on over 5,000 servers across three data centers, we need a lean and nimble approach to software development and operational implementation. Without a DevOps approach, we wouldn't be able to push code into production as fast or as efficiently as we do, and our customers would not be happy! Today's developers demand up-to-the-hour security and performance updates to Internet infrastructure, so we aim to deliver just that with DevOps."Though expressed in the context of our work, the import of DevOps that Simon's comment generally highlights is going to be increasingly important for nearly anyone running cloud services.
In particular, I've been following the work of the intrepid folks at CERN. As such, this post is not about DreamHost; rather, it's a mad tale of OpenStack, DevOps, and averting alien invasion.
"The CERN Agile Infrastructure project aims to develop CERN's computing resources and processes to support the expanding needs of LHC physicists and the CERN organisation."
- modernise the data centre configuration tools and automating operations procedures
- exploit wide scale use of virtualisation, improving flexibility and efficiency
- enhance monitoring such that the usage of the infrastructure can be fully understood and tuned to maximise the resources available
That isn't to say there haven't been incidents...
- OpenStack as a single Infrastructure-as-a-Service providing physics experiment services, developer boxes, applications servers as well as the large batch farm
- Puppet for configuration management
- Scientific Linux CERN as the dominant operating system with sizeable chunk of Windows installs
Although Barney hadn't seen any evidence of resonance cascades, there have been minor cross-dimensional disturbances as a result of some "cowboy" activity and folks not following DevOps best practices. This has been kept quiet for obvious reasons, but has led to a small pest problem in some of CERN's older tunnel complexes. As rouge elements are discovered, CERN has been educating transgressors aggressively. (Sometimes they go as far as sending employees to Xen training... or was it Xen training?)
One artist's conception of what success will look like for OpenStack at CERN |
The OpenStack community is supporting them in their efforts with fantastic new features, high-quality discussions on the mail lists, and real-time interaction on the IRC channels. In an act of reciprocity and community spirit, operators at CERN have volunteered to contribute back to the OpenStack community with regard to operations best practices, reference architecture documentation, and support on the operators' mail list.
To see how other institutions were taking this news, I spent several days waiting on hold. In particular, Aperture Science could not be reached for comment. However, Ops team member Belmiro Rodrigues Moreira did say that there's an audio file being circulated at CERN of Cave Johnson threatening to "burn down OpenStack" ... with lemons. Given Aperture Science's failure record with time machine development, it's generally assumed to be a prank audio reconstruction. CloudStack developers are considered to be the prime suspects, seeing how much time they have on their hands while waiting for ant to finish compiling the latest Java contributions.
When asked what advice he could give to shops deploying OpenStack, Tim said simply: "Remember, the cake is a lie. Don't get distracted and don't stop. Just keep hacking."
Alyx, explaining to her dad why she loves DreamHost |
In closing, and interestingly enough, one of DreamHost's employees has an uncle who works at the Black Mesa Research Facility. Though his teleportation research team was too busy for an extended interview, his daughter did mention that she is a DreamHost customer and can't wait to use OpenStack while interning at CERN next summer. After all, that's what she uses to auto-scale her WordPress blog (she's in our private beta program).
It's a small world.
And, thanks to Tim and the rest at CERN, a safer one, too.
Syndicated 2012-05-15 06:00:00 (Updated 2012-05-15 19:05:32) from Duncan McGreggor