Random Thoughts: On OpenStack

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OpenStack is over 5 years old now.  I have seen the project from days when many pundits claimed its not needed or it is a dead project or what not. These are some of my thoughts about the overall project & where it i s headed.

Community: I think OpenStack is one of the biggest project so far written in python. The latest release has over 5000 developers. Every release has followed a cycle & delivered timely.

Marketing Hype: OpenStack no more enjoys the hype it used to years back, tech scene changes so rapidly. 

Foundation: I think forming OpenStack foundation was one of the best thing happened to the project. The folks are working really hard to push project forward in whatever best possible way they can.

Foundation Members: OpenStack has almost every enterprise backing, check this link if you don’t believe me .  All these organization wants to make money out of it & hence they all have aspirations. Most of them have full time employes hacking/contributing to upstream OpenStack code.

Definition of OpenStack: It has been over 5 years & we have not come to a conclusion what components must/must-not have to make the product “OpenStack Powered” I know Rob & others been working hard on this, not sure when will this be finally a reality.

VC’s putting $$$:  Vc’s believed in Openstack & startups building services around OpenStack ended up getting funded over a billion $. Source

Acquisitions & Closures: In this 5 years tenure we saw a lot of these smaller startups getting acquired by traditional vendors like Piston, CloudScaling, BlueBox.  At same time we heard about Nebula closing down & HP public cloud getting shut.

Job Market: OpenStack created a great job market & even 5 years down the line being an OpenStack developer can get you good $$. If you have contributed upstream then companies will be after you to hire.

The dream of Federated Cloud: I am still waiting to see if  I will even be able to share my workload simultaneously on Rackspace, IBM Cloud or others with single OpenStack dashboard. This dream which was sold to us, I don’t see happening at all.  After fighting with Simon all these years over API I have to agree having Amazon API support as native would have increased OpenStack’s adoption.

Too many install Options: I have to agree many ways to do the same thing can be confusing. Installing OpenStack is still hard and perhaps will always remain so. I won’t be surprised if someone writes a detailed thesis on the installation procedure & options [with comparison to all devOp tools] for OpenStack & upgrading OpenStack.

Pain of managing Install/API doc:  Every new release has 100+ new flags & coordinating with developers or upstream contributor is not an easy job.  Anne & team are doing excellent work. They will love to see your contribution & this is the best place if you want to get started with  contributing to OpenStack project.

PS: I was one of the core OpenStack documentation contributor &  still a community coordinator for OpenStack project in India.

Moving On, last day at The New Stack

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Leaving an organization is extremely difficult especially when  you have been part of it from day Zero[or before] or a 1st/2nd hire.  But as someone said every great thing comes with an expiry date hence here I am writing my post on my last day of work at The New Stack.

The Journey

I got to know Alex [Founder of The New Stack] via Krishnan   met in Portland during OSCON & got to know about this opportunity.  I was more than happy to take the task as my work included getting website developed with remote developers, find interesting authors/contributors & spread word about The New Stack, building an awesome community via social media, offline mediums, meetups.

Learning 

It was great almost 2 yrs journey with Alex & The New Stack team. The team has grown so does our visibility, people talk about us & quality of our published content.

  1. I got to meet so many amazing people & made few good friends.
  2. Great amount of  learning & mentoring from Alex[he will continue doing so 🙂 ] and rest of the team.
  3. Keeping nerves in place during situations like server downtimes or verbal  arguments with people loaded with Egos.
  4. Getting more work done with being  empathetic with co-workers
  5. I have my own podcast  channel now, credit goes to Alex for the pep talk. [Be humble, honest & let the people talk.]
  6. I feel being more confident, relaxed, happy about everything in Life

Personal Goal

I am an average writer so plan is to keep working on my writing skills & occasionally submit some contributors post for The New Stack[considering my writing skill qualifies :D]

Last Not The Least 

OpenStack project has been one common connection or reason I got this gig or met Alex & Krishnan. I am thankful to the folks for pulling up such a brilliant project & uniting so many like minded folks on planet.  I have not written about it in long a separate blog will be posted soon.

Nepal is suffering & you are all responsible

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Ordinary Nepali friends are in real pain & I have written about same before in my previous blog.

Who are the real culprits for current situation:

Nepali Politicians

Nepali politicians are thick skinned. They are part of every deal be it taking bribe from India or China for giving contracts or  channeling  money to personal pocket out of millions  received from world as aid in recent earthquake. Be it Oli, Prachanda or Madheshi all are same living in distant world. Why at very first place the constitution got passed with having severe discrepancies?

Why is ruling government not taking correct measures to restore peace in Tarai part, why are protesters getting shot on point blank? Can you all calm down, quit your ego & think for the  starving family out on remote hills or the poor farmers/laborers in Tarai. All these while you been appointing naxalites & murderers to top position, is this how you are aiming for progressive Nepal?

Indian Government 

I have high regards for prime minister Mr. Modi but what is this blockade going on? Why are our diplomates so useless & what has we got to do with Nepali constitution? Don’t we have enough problem in our own country which requires immediate attention? Nepal has moved on, stop being big brother to them, the new leaders think they are more happy keeping equidistant relationship b/w India & China. What is wrong with that?

Nepali Police

Stop treating protesters like dogs, they are as Nepali as you are. You have already killed 50+ so far, how many more is the target? Do let us know if there is a bounty/prize/medals Prachanda or Oli is giving you for the same or is it Chinese arms manufacturers?

Chinese Government

If  China thinks by they can get into minds/nerves of ordinary Nepalis & replace it India its not happening. India & Nepal has 100+ years of cultural bonding. China should come clean with its intention, we all know how much ruling politicians are aligned to them.

Nepali Journalist 

Well Nepali journalists are competing with Indian counterparts. I am yet to find a single journalist sitting in Kathmandu asking tough question from Oli on constitution amendments to killing of protesters to excessive force in Tarai. All this while they been governments cheerleader & throwing muds against India. My request to all of them is just grow up & think beyond being Anti-Indian or Anti-Madhesh. What have you done about human rights violation happening in Tarai?

Journalism is considered 3ed pillar of democracy  but all these days what you folks are doing is hate mongering, racist slur, spreading lies & propaganda. Can you all stop spreading lies & do fact checking before sharing it among your followers on social media & writing for you newspaper?

Nepali People 

Can we stop fighting with each other & discriminating on basis of origin Dhoti VS Pahadi

Ask tough questions from your government be it blockade or constitution or equal rights for women

Agitation will do no good & will harm overall country.

Everything has a price & India as well as China knows about it.

Stop wasting time on free NCELL plan fighting over unnecessary issues & burning blood on social media platforms.  Your government is not listening, next time go vote & select right candidate/ministers.

Also stop blaming India for all your problems we been your friends for century & helped you in all good/bad situations.

China can only compliment to an extent with resources [arms, petrol or bribing politicians], it cannot replace Indo-Nepali ties. Stop living in dreams & believing in what your media or politicians are saying.

My friend Binaya reminded me of John Lennon — Imagine, embedding the same here.

 

Random Thoughts: On television, newspaper & media

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When I was a little kid we only had Doordarshan, India’s national channel & It had limited hours dedicated for news. Currently we have 25+ hindi & english channel catering 24/7 news.  If we add up entertainment/lifestyle/sports the list will go over 200. It is same with newspapers.

I have not purchased a newspaper in last 3-4 years nor owned a TV. I will chalk down my thoughts & reasons  for the same.

  1. The quality of Media content has gone low, editorial has no substance & TV debates are like cat fight.
  2. TV or newspaper are all about creating sensation.
  3. Instead of  being source of information they have turned as infotainment.
  4.  Most of these newspapers or TV channels are run by politicians with a specific propaganda.
  5. I get to know more about brand with 10 page of advertisement or multiple TV breaks instead news that i can relate to.

Do you like reading newspaper these days or watching debate on news channels? How do you keep up with it?

Random Thoughts: On working remotely

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I have completed almost 2+ years working remotely. I can only say its not an easy job  & requires well defined process in place. I just felt like sharing what could be the best way to avoid conflicts across team members & abiding to timeline.

Daily Communication Tools
To communicate with the daily activities with your team members it is important to have a communication channel which can be Slack or IRC or else.

If something is important sending an e-mail will be a super wise idea.

Scheduled Team Meetings
Considering a remote team with members present in multiple timezones, it is extremely important to have a fixed day & time in week for the meeting. The same can use tools like google calendar for the same. One can have a audio/video conversation on tools like Skype, join.me, Google Hangouts or Others

Project Management
It is also important to have a project management tool with roadmaps, current assigned task to each member of the team. It gives good idea what a particular member is working on this week or month. We have so many tools like Asana, Basecamp.

Pep Talk & some empathy
It often happens when the team grows rapidly some members start getting less feedbacks or response because the lead is busy with other more important tasks. A team lead should have one to one personal communication with each of its member for feedbacks, motivation & rest.

Last not the least its good to have some empathy for each & every member of the team because you never know what current situation he/she is going through along with giving 40hrs of his/hers weekly for the organization. 

Random Thoughts: Loving yourself.

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We are living in hyper connected community. All celebrations, entertainment, get together are more online than offline.  

As a result our success & happiness has new degree of measurement like:

  1. How many people like my Facebook status.
  2. How many retweeted my Tweet

At same time we equally  question our self :

  1. Is my boss happy with my work
  2. I hope my friends will like me in new dress or haircut
  3. I hope by bf/gf is not cheating on me
  4. I don’t know how my friends, office colleague & peer groups think about me

We spend so much time on all these things that we totally forget to think about ourselves. The priority we give to external world instead internal us is making us all vulnerable & sometimes leads to severe depression.
Are you loving yourself?

Traits of successful people

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Advantage of being a connector is that you get to meet people with diverse background, culture & belief. Some are very successful with whatever they are doing, others working hard to reach there. I made a list of qualities which in my opinion you will see in these successful people.

1. They are grounded.
2. They take advice or listen to everyone but end take the best path.
3. They are empathic.
4. They respect everyone
5. They are inquisitive
6. They are always eager to learn something.
7. They don’t get tired easily
8. Are are front shooters
9. They like to relax, smile often

PS: there are some exception i.e Steve jobs, if world thinks he was successful. What do you think, what makes you successful?

Random Thoughts: Letting it go.

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I am done living half of my life [assuming we don’t get Nuked by our neighbours or we have some natural calamity ] There are few things which at times I think about from past :

  1. should have acted more professional in that executive meeting.
  2. should not have fought over phone after few bottles down with someone I cared for.
  3. should not have given my brutal honest opinion to my closest friend who is no-more my friend.
  4. Should have bowed to his Ego for bigger paycheck/job.

I had options.

a) Either I should cry over it, burn my blood, feel miserable [Not that I did not do all of this]

b) Learn from these mistakes & move on. I don’t have to be so harsh on myself.  [Its too fucking hard to practice though..]

Alas “Time is the biggest healer”, they said. It took me sometime to realize that i need to let few things go from my life & its for my good.

What do you all think?

Who am I?

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I am trying to develop a habit of reading, last week while reading one article I got to know about “Mundaka Upanishad“.

Upanishad are suktis[chants] which teachers[guru] used to share among students in older days in India. There are 18 principal upanishads.

On searching harder I got these 2 videos explaining “Who am I” using Mundaka Upanishad.

 

 

In all honesty I am not the write guy to write summery of these, i would request you to watch both the videos & understand from it. I hope it helps to almost all of us who been asking all this while to ourselves “Who am I?”

Bonus: I also found this series of lectures[mp3]  on  Mundaka Upanisad, you should wget get and save it will be a good content to listen while you are on a long flight.

Oli, Constitution & Indo-Nepal relationship

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Constitution

Nepal is still recovering from the aftermath of massive earthquake which killed over 10, 000 people and displaced millions. The rescue and aid operation in most of the affected part is still underway. At the same time the political parties in Nepal decided to pass its new constitution and it came into effect on September 20, 2015.

The constitution has failed to address every region of the country especially people from madhesh, as a result there were serious protest. These protests turned violent & over 40 protesters were killed by the security forces in retaliation.

India’s Advice

India suggested Nepal to bring every regional leader on table before passing the constitution India also suggested Nepali leaders to take some more time because of the ongoing unrest in madhesh region, which shares open boundary with India.

Aftermath

Social Media: As a result of this request and with social media this whole request/suggestion of India got projected as bully and young nepalis went crazy on sites like Twitter and Facebook asking India to stay out of issues in Nepal. There were hashtags like #BackoffIndia all over the internet.

Nepali Media: Various online news media, publication blamed India for shortage of fuel and other essential items. India has been supplying these to Nepal for decades[Nepal pays for it].

It should be noted, most of these same press, media ignored to acknowledge the real reason for fuel shortage being the disruption created by the protesters in madhesh region. India rejected these allegations and made it clear that there is no blockade & advised the ruling government to fix the deadloack between protesters in madhesh region.

Public Sentiments: With the help of social media, TV, press ordinary nepalis are fed enough 24*7 to believe that India is reason for all current mess not the inability of the political parties who passed the constitution without having everyone on board.

Advantage China

It should be noted that Prachanda, Koirala & Oli are key figures in Nepal’s ruling running coalition. By the time this post get published, Oli might be announced as next PM of Nepal. It is out and open that Oli is not a big admirer of India & has spoken numerous occasions about same. He is considered to be more inclined towards China like Prachanda.

Since media and people’s sentiment are already against India [at least in Kathmandu], Oli will play his chinese cards in all possible ways. [After all its a payback time for him.]

What next?

  1. India should learn from its mistake & remember that politicians are never affiliated to a particular group/section. Its all about money & timing.
  2. The propaganda local media in Nepal has created against India will affect ordinary people from both countries.
  3. The newly elected leadership will keep playing catch up to Indian counterparts. It will be test of nerves for Mr. Modi & team.
  4. China will give few billions more aid to Nepal and grab most of the reconstruction work.
  5. With the technology China has in 12–18 months they will bomb few mountains & build a trade route with Nepal. [not kidding]
  6. India might have to start fencing its border with Nepal because the madhesh protest will affect it more than Kathmandu.
  7. Madhesh leaders should unite & form a single alliance. Unity always helps and the numbers will make voice heard in Kathmandu otherwise they will remain what they are called among the elite class DHOTI.