Some of you may be wondering what’s happened to this blog since I rejoined EMC back in June. Let me say first of all that my intent is to pick back up with my writing once the Summer is over. The reality is that my output has been limited due to the typical busyness that comes with starting a new gig and also having a daughter to take care of who’s out of school because it is Summer. So stay tuned for upcoming content on both the technology behind and the business of OpenStack.
The general availability of the Juno release of the OpenStack Cloud platform is scheduled for October. This also means that the next OpenStack Summit is only a few months away. In November, the Foundation will be hosting their biannual conference in Paris, France. This will be the second Summit held outside U.S. soil and the first in Europe. I expect another great week of collaborative learning and working with folks in the community.
As usual, there are some great talks being proposed for the upcoming Summit and I would encourage everyone to vote for the talks that they believe should be presented. Voting will be open until Wednesday, August 6, at 11:59 CDT. Please note that you do need to be a OpenStack Community member in order to vote; If you are not currently a member, you can easily register for a free membership via the OpenStack website.
As was the case with the previous Summit in Atlanta, I’ve decided to take the approach of collaborating as much as possible with folks in the community. As such, I submitted a total of five (5) panels and three (3) joint talks which include forty-two (42) representatives from twenty-eight (28) different companies.
Details on my proposed talks and panels are below and I would humbly ask readers to please consider voting for some or all of the talks and encouraging others to do the same.
Title: Ask the Experts: OpenStack as a Service or as a Distribution?
Abstract: This all-star panel discussion will focus on the merits and challenges of deploying OpenStack as either a distribution or as a service. This panel discussion will be recorded as a “Speaking in Tech” Podcast which is distributed by Europe’s largest tech publication, The Register.
Topics that will be discussed include:
Implications for hardware and software on-premises / off-premises
Enterprise considerations for control of data and security
Legal implications for off-site data (i.e. Microsoft Azure Ireland court order)
Cost considerations
Maturity of distributions and service providers
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Title: Building a Cloud Career in OpenStack
Abstract: As OpenStack continues to grow, the need for OpenStack expertise has resulted in high demand a short supply. From startups to enterprises and everything in between, companies are paying top dollar to recruit and retain OpenStack experts. In this panel, join OpenStack experts from Metacloud, Solidfire, Rackspace, EMC, and Cisco who will discuss:
* What types of roles are available
* How to translate your current skill set into an OpenStack career path
* Resources available to advance your career
This is an interactive panel, so bring your questions! Recruiters and job seekers are invited to attend!
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Title: Finding, joining, and building a strong OpenStack community in your area
Abstract: Virtualization and worldwide distribution are great when it comes to cloud computing and open source projects. In both cases, physical location is largely irrelevant.
But one of the best ways to participate in the global OpenStack community is to join or start a local meetup.
The presenters will share their broad experience running user groups over the past decade and their lessons from recent OpenStack events throughout the United States and Israel.
This session will teach you how to
Find an active OpenStack (or related cloud computing) user group near you
Contribute your own knowledge at a local event
Organize – and sustain – a strong OpenStack community in your area
After this presentation, you will
Appreciate the professional (and social) benefits of attending a local meetup
Know how to share your expertise and establish your technical eminence as an OpenStack expert
Be prepared to effectively organize and run a sustainable local OpenStack user group
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Title: Getting Started with OpenStack
Abstract: OpenStack continues to grow exponentially as the de facto standard for open source Cloud platforms. But how can someone quickly get started with learning this exciting new technology? This workshop will walk participants through an overview of the OpenStack components and offer practical suggestions and resources for learning OpenStack. To demonstrate one way to get started, we will assist workshop attendees to set up a multi-node OpenStack cloud, on their laptops, using Red Hat’s RDO and the Packstack installation utility.
During the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to do the following:
Installing OpenStack on their laptops
Walking through the Horizon dashboard
Adding new users
Adding an image to Glance
Defining networks in Neutron
Starting a new virtual server
Creating and attaching Cinder storage volumes to virtual servers
Storing objects in Swift Using the Horizon Dashboard user interface
Exploring Ceilometer metrics
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Title: Meet the OpenStack Ambassadors
Abstract: Ambassadors are recognised on the OpenStack website for their efforts and provided with support from foundation staff to conduct their duties. They will also get access to a funding program – allowing them to request funds for activities of impact in their region. We’d also expect ambassadors to attend the summits, and the Foundation would likely assist if it wasn’t possible for them to be there using their own methods.
Ambassador Attributes
Act as a liaison between user groups, the Foundation, and the general community, for example:
helping to solicit feedback on OpenStack and aggregate it to the global level
promoting key messages into the user communities (eg “ask questions on ask.openstack.org!”)
finding people to help localise content
helping onboard new users and contributors
Assist in user group best practice – from nurturing new groups to cementing the quality of existing ones
Help people find the ‘right people’ to talk to
Represent the community via speaking and visibility opportunities with the official title
Report on the activities in their region
Be a good leader, wrangling activity from others and mobilising the global OpenStack community!
The title is designed to recognize those who are already good leaders with a proven track record in the community. With the title, new users, contributors and community members should easily be able to recognize their Ambassador as a go-to resource. While the role provides inherent credibility, it also comes with accountability, meaning decisions and actions made by the Ambassador should benefit the whole community, not just one person or company.
We believe that the Ambassadors will already be active participants in our community. Think about those people who are already working across multiple user groups, submitting OpenStack mini-events to related conferences, helping onboard new users and contributors, arranging hackfests or just generally going above and beyond in the name of making OpenStack great.
Meet the OpenStack Ambassadors.
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Title: OpenStack Design Guide Panel
Abstract: In July, 2014 The OpenStack Foundation brought twelve members of the OpenStack community together at VMware HQ in Palo Alto, California to produce the OpenStack Design Guide in just 5 days. This panel brings many of these authors together for an open discussion about how to architecture an OpenStack cloud.
Bring your real-world questions and be prepared to talk OpenStack architecture with a panel of experts from across multiple disciplines and companies. We’ll be drawing on real architecture and design problems taken from real-world experiences working with, and developing solutions, built on OpenStack. Following a brief introduction, panelists are ready to field questions from both the moderator and audience members and provide ongoing discussion the design process for architecting cloud solutions based on OpenStack.
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Title: OpenStack for VMware Operators
Abstract: If you are currently running a VMware environment, and want to know how OpenStack would fit into your existing operational processes, this is the session for you.
At previous OpenStack Summit events, attendees with a strong VMware background were introduced to OpenStack. Building on the content presented in those sessions, this session will take an operations-focused view of OpenStack and VMware. This session will move the focus away from just mapping VMware and OpenStack concepts to how VMware admins can manage and operate an OpenStack cloud deployment.
If you are currently running a VMware environment, and want to know how OpenStack would fit into your existing operational processes, this is the session for you.
At previous OpenStack Summit events, attendees with a strong VMware background were introduced to OpenStack. Building on the content presented in those sessions, this session will take an operations-focused view of OpenStack and VMware. This session will move the focus away from just mapping VMware and OpenStack concepts to how VMware admins can manage and operate an OpenStack cloud deployment.
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Title: The Role of Software Defined Storage in OpenStack
Abstract: What is the relationship between Cloud Computing and what has been termed, the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC)? Does OpenStack already implement Software Defined Storage (SDS) and if not, what should be the role of SDS in the OpenStack platform? In this panel, we will hear from storage experts with a diversity of opinions on these important questions. We will have a discussion on the role of SDS of in OpenStack broadly and the implementation of SDS being proposed by vendors such as EMC and Huawei. You will hear from proponents as well critics who believe that the current vendor proposals for SDS are at odds with the open source vision for OpenStack. The goal is to begin driving an open and honest discussion about the future of OpenStack storage technologies.
Thank you for your continued support and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in November. Happy Voting!
Filed under: Cloud, Cloud Computing, Community, OpenStack, Private Cloud, Public Cloud, SDDC, SDS, Software Defined Storage, Virtualization, VMware Tagged: Cloud, Cloud computing, OpenStack, Private Cloud, Public Cloud, SDDC, VMware, VMware vSphere, vSphere 
