Well said Vish, this would be a great wiki entry for folks to reference in the future. :)
While Nova probably needs the most coordination due to it's developer base, these of course apply to all other projects. -Eric On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 11:55:17PM -0700, Vishvananda Ishaya wrote: > After reading Thierry's blog post on what he expects from the Nova PTL, I > started to consider what I think the PTL's job should be. As I see it, a > Project Technical Lead has three main responsibilities: > > * Internal Project Communication > - minimize duplication of work > - facilitate collaboration between diverse teams > - ensure resources are evenly allocated to meet release requirements > * OpenStack Project Integration > - improve integration with other OpenStack components > - ensure the project is contributing to and using openstack-common > - help break out components into separate projects when needed > * Long-Term Project Vision > - verify development meets basic design tenets > - make sure that project is actually deployable and usable > - maintain alignment between release requirements and long term goals > > I'd like to explain my position on these responsibilities, why they are > important, and how I see that they can be best fulfilled by a Project > Technical Lead in Nova. Obviously, the many specifics will be influenced > by the design summit, but this should paint a picture of what I think is a > good starting point for the future of Nova. This isn't meant to be an > exhaustive list, but rather a beginning. Hopefully, my ideas can spark a > bit of discussion to give the elected PTL a clear idea of what to expect. > > Internal Project Communication > > One of the most important jobs of the Nova PTL is to facilitate > communication between the various teams that are working on the Nova code > base. The amount of different work going into Nova is already hard to > track, and this will only become more difficult as more organizations and > groups join. The PTL needs to keep track of which teams are working in > which areas, to ensure that the teams are able to communicate with each > other, and to verify that the teams are keeping their specs and blueprints > up to date. > > To facilitate this, it seems vital to know who is on which team and their > main development focus for the current release. Because it will be > virtually impossible to track everyone individually, it will help for > him or her to have a point of contact on each team. He should also > attempt to facilitate different teams working together if their > development goals align. > > A good example of a place that could benefit from attention by the PTL, is > the oft-mentioned network refactor. It has been progressing slowly > because there are diverse teams working on it without sufficient > coordination. The PTL could help to organize a combined network team and > help to select a team lead to drive the refactor. > > OpenStack Project Integration > > Another responsibility of the PTL is to make sure that Nova is > well-integrated with the other openstack components. The PTL needs to > have a clear picture of new and needed features in glance and swift, as > well as any new projects that are added to OpenStack. > > It is also vital that we focus on common components over the next couple > releases. If we don't do this the projects will gradually grow apart, and > it will be very difficult to present a coherent OpenStack deployment > involving all of the projects. The most important first-step in my mind > is Authn/Authz. A common authentication system will do wonders for > keeping the projects aligned. > > We have discussed beginning to break out components in the Diablo time > frame. We need to focus very early on the changes necessary to make > this painless. This includes minimizing the communication between > compute, network, and volume, and ensuring that the components are using > clear interfaces. > > Long Term Project Vision > > Finally, the PTL needs to maintain a holistic vision of the project and > the long term vision. This has less to with the technical implementation > details, and more to do with making sure the project is successful and of > high quality. The PTL needs to constantly be asking two quesions: > > 1) Is it deployable? > 2) Is it usable? > > For the project to succeed, we need a vehement yes to both of these. With > the various groups working on features that are important to them, it is > easy to forget that the it is the quality of the project that will > determine the success or failure of OpenStack as a whole. We must put > extra focus in the following four areas: > > Automated Testing > > Automated Testing is the only way we can verify that we have a working > system. There should be multiple configurations that are being > automatically tested and a set of instructions for creating test clusters > and new configurations. > > Code Consistency > > We must spend time cleaning up pylint scores and vetting the unit tests > and various parts of the code for common style. We need a clear developer > guide and toolset configuration examples for new developers. These will > allow new developers become productive more quickly. > > Deployability > > We need more focus on documentation, tools, and recommended (tested) > configurations of hardware and software. This absolutely needs to include > integrated deployments that incorporate other OpenStack components. > > User Experience > > Testing of actual use cases is very important to make sure that the > user-experience doesn't suffer. It is also important that we understand > and synthesize customer needs as organizations continue to deploy > OpenStack. There are a number of features that are very valuable to users > that aren't completeley obvious to developers (snapshotting is a good > example of this). > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~openstack > Post to : openstack@lists.launchpad.net > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~openstack > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~openstack Post to : openstack@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~openstack More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
