Essex/Precise beginners guide released.

Although am too late to blog about it still its better than not doing it.

We at csscorp been working on the various release of Openstack for over a year. In continuation with our effort we have recently released Precise/Essex (12.04 ubuntu) version of our book.

I am happy to be part of such awesome team and its been great learning experience.

Change notes and book can be found for download here

http://cssoss.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/openstack-beginners-guide-v3-0-for-essex-on-ubuntu-12-04-precise-pangolin/

Apart from that the same content can be found at official openstack documentation repository here http://docs.openstack.org/essex/openstack-compute/starter/content/

I also did a small screen cast for Dashboard walk through which can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu3TNAlX7vs&feature=plcp

Cloud commentary, same packaged shit(AwsVsOpenstackVsproprietary)

So before i begin i should tell you i removed around 5-6 shit creators/cloud pundits from my twitter feed.

They were making my timeline into a rotton/shitty/cloudy junkyard.

I will begin now:–

So the distro troll was already around and alas there came this cloud commentary full of shit.

So we have 3 camps AWS(Eucalyptus/Cloudstack), Openstack(HP cloud/Dell/others and proprietary(Vmware/MSFT, others)

The problem???

AWS camp

The AWS camp folks claim that they use de-facto cloud standard and API. Since they are dependent on mercy of the mighty AWS which has its on closed API, still they call them self truly open. Seems like everyone has made its own definition of “Open” these days. Fare enough they need to earn and remain in market so not an issue and therefore community manager can change roles at times to PR if needed. I meant he/she can praise AWS API more than his own product. 🙂 I am sure people still love and will keep using them if instead of mentioning failures of there competitors they will spend more time explaining awesome features about there product. I am saying this because i have seen some of them at conferences bitching more about there competitors than explaining about there product. You can`t build your castle throwing stone on others mansion. 😛

About Openstack

I been contributing to Openstack since cactus came out. I must admit i was too frustrated and i had same notion like others :- Does this work ? Is it another failed sandwiched project? I used to laugh at times what am i getting out of it. I am happy to admit am still playing with openstack and have filed bugs, wrote documentation, helped others at IRC. I have a new life and am happy/proud at same time. Essex release is the answer i got. Yes, everything works. And yes Openstack is matured biggest example is HP announcement of its public cloud on top of Openstack. 155+ enterprise with Openstack are not fools, they know how awesomely they can make there own pie out of it.

But at same time Openstack talks about 100% opensource API. I love it and that is one main reason am in love with it. But at same time it will really matter to those who care about it(openess/freedom)

In india i say cloud and student tells me Amazon(AWS). Is he really aware about the API amazon uses? He wants to see the power of cloud and he is having it.

You really want to tell everyone about the open source API please reach to the masses University/Colleges.

About proprietary vendors :-

They are having good laugh with the AWS camp and Openstack camp everyday news.

Also,

I laugh when i see people comparing Openstack with Eucalyptus or Cloudstack.  Its not the fight between Openstack Vs Eucalyptus or Cloudstack but between the derivatives of Openstack Vs Eucalyptus or Cloudstack

“if you don’t want to use Eucalyputs, don’t use it. You don’t want to use OpenStack based cloud, use something else. At the end of the day, its about succeeding with a private/public cloud platform. We should be celebrating the successes of each cloud – not throwing bricks at each other.Let the competition be determined by what users want, not talking crap about other products. Besides, there is plenty of space in the Clouds.. 😀

Salt

Its been over 3-4 months i been itching to find alternative of Ruby based configuration management tool. I came to know about Salt.

Its a configuration management tool written in python, from initial 30 mins of my experience am writing this blog.

It took me less than 2 minutes get master/minion running on multiple VM via Virtualbox. From my experience of Puppet deployment i can simply say Salt much simpler.

What i have done so far?

Played with apt, cmd  and cd modules. Many more to go but i will sleep as its already 4 am.

you can find all info http://saltstack.org/ they have got awesome documentation along with cool screen cast which can let anyone swim inside salt.

 

Newbies guide to joining Cloud Ecosystem !!

Its been over a year i joined the cloud ride. I would be honest with reason to come up with this blog.

Folks walking in IRC channel asking questions which is more related to there OS than the cloud product.

It was like they just had a “joint” and in 30 minutes they want to have there Infrastructure as cloud service running (IaaS). I will not go in details as if it was his professor who forced him to do it in such short timeline or its his boss who wants him to look for FOSS alternatives to available proprietary products.  I have termed “Cloud Hippie”

This is why i am writing this blog, just don`t be one of the “Cloud Hippie” 🙂

                                   Before you jump on cloud
Points to ponder
1. building blocks of cloud
As far as i know these are the 3 main building block of IaaS
1.1 OS
Please spend sometime, in case you have never used any Linux Distribution and once your familiar with it move to next. In case you think WTF am talking about, yeah i have seen people wanting to deploy IaaS without basic Linux Admin skill set. 🙁
1.2 Virtualization
Try to read up on what Virtualization is? What is it all about.
Which one you want to use (Kvm/Xen). Basic concept behind it.
1.3 Networking
Its you who knows about your network architecture, number of interface cards you are using and all. How will i know about your routing and sub netting.
2. Knowing your IaaS
Market is full of alternatives Cloudstack/Eucalyptus/Openstack and others.
You have to understand what exactly you want to achieve, set your priorities in place.
2.1 Programming language its written.
It becomes easy to understand how things work if you go through the code.
2.2 Basic idea about each components.
Every IaaS has its own components. If your using Eucalyptus you will find
terms like NC/CC/Walrus & if using Openstack you will find
nova/glance/swift/keystone.  Go through the blog, basic install guide try to know some basics about the service you finally want to deploy.
3. What do you want finally?
So now once you have done your homework.
3.1 Hypervisor (Kvm/Xen)
You will be easily in position to decide what hypervisior you are going to use according to your internal needs.
3.2 Operating system (Ubuntu/Fedora/Redhat)
After reading through basic documentation you can easily decide which distribution it is more easy to deploy and maintain. Remember you also need to get regular security updates, bug fixes as well. 🙂
4. Getting Help
This is the crossroad. You tried everything still in pain/bleeding. It might be bug, your typo in config file or anything.
4.1 Forum
Most projects has a place where people discuss when they are stuck or even when they have something to share. Trust me in most cases many others would have stuck where you are currently.
4.2 Visit IRC
This is where the devs sit, don`t ask ASL there.  Trust me not everyone is paid to answer your questions unlike very few. So be polite and ask questions without demanding or cribbing 🙂
4.3 Go to the mailing list
 Join the mailing list of the project to know more whats happening inside.
5. Contribute
5.1 Report bugs, whats wrong/missing.
Every project needs people to find issues. Launchpad or other hosted platform has inbuilt bug reporting tool. 🙂
5.2 Write a blog explaining your install doc.
Please note any single achievement you have done is incredible, spreading it will help other newbie.
5.3 Help others at IRC/Mailing list.
This is your time to join the flock, help those who are stuck 🙂
5.4 Evangelism
Spread the word in your area, you might be only one with this expertise. It will be really cool to help and get more inside community. 🙂
In case i am still not able to make things clear follow big daddy`s guide ” How to ask question in smart way”

Event Report: Gnunify.in, Pune, India

Gnunify.in is one of the oldest FOSS event in India, this year it was scheduled on 10th and 11th Feb 2012 .

And yes this time i attended it as speaker after failing to qualify last year. 🙂

I spoke on Juju, Ubuntu Cloud Orchestration framework , presentation slides are available here

Few take away for me personally after attending the event :-

1. Moving out of the distro fanaticism.

2. Getting to know more about Mozilla and Wikipedia folks.

3. Socializing with Fedora folks.

4. Finally meeting Arky after 9 yrs. 😀

FOSS events are good way to meet old folks, chat/socialize and exchange ideas.

I met many old timers like mbuf, ramky, runa, karunakar, nager, shariq and greenmang0 , others apart from spending most of my time with Deependra the Eucalyptus magician.

Lastly big thanks to the volunteers and organizers, sponsors(Eucalyptus) for making this event a grand success.

Lastly thanks again to Deeprendra for getting me this shiny beer opener, i  badly needed this. 😀

 

Richard Stallman: Free Software, Freedom and Education

As per the schedule we were at IIT, Chennai to attend talk of Richard Stallman, founder Free Software Foundation and man behind the Gnu project. The title of the presentation was “Free Software, Freedom and Education”

 

 

The event had over 3000 participants mostly from various engineering colleges across the city and area nearby, apart from ilugc members and fsftn folks. People were in queue to enter inside the conference hall few hours in advance.

So this time he started with Facebook, and how dangerous it is to use/share information there and how federal agencies are using it to spy on you. Then he spoke about how new age programming has resulted into writing malicious javascript code which results in fetching many valuable data of the users. He urged not to use/post today`s conf photo there and make sure to use browser with disable javascript mode.

Then came the old propitiatory OS and the harmful effect of it and how society is getting affected from it.  He even mentioned about Android ported on/by different vendors on there hardware is not a free software. He also mentioned how close is kindle and like services. He was also very unhappy about SAS model, as your data is not secure.

After one and half hour of general philosophy about free software, proprietary, DRM he spoke about the need of Free Software in Education.

According to him if a education system is not imparting education on Free Software nothing is going in correct direction. I would agree to him on that. I just hope some day our Indian Government realizes and removes the mandatory teaching of non-free software with free software alternative. It will not only save lots of money but will also give more independence to a user to explore more.

We saw  St IGNUcius in the last part of the session. It was all about Emacs. It was different RMS which i had seen before, the lighter side of him and i liked it.

Lastly came Q/A session he answered more than 20 questions. Lastly yes i became FSF-India member finally. 😀

2011 passed, 2012 welcome!!

Been a while i wrote anything on my blog. So time to review what all i did/happened in 2011.

Firstly “happy new year 2012” to all my friends whom i did not call/sms/tweet blehh blehh , i was partying with my friends in jungle of Lonavala.

Mithesh Greenmang0 and friends at Lonavala !!

Okey lets begin :-

Moved to Chennai in feb 2011 and joined www.csscorp.com open source support team, thanks to @kiranmurari for giving me this opportunity. 🙂

I have completed almost 1 year here and to be honest second place after www.newsx.com where i have stayed for over an year. 😀

I been told a lot about Chennai, especially about people/food/weather but i am lucky 2 have awesome office folks and friends  i managed all of this and had no difficulty in adjusting with/to it. Autowallahs are morons all across India and  Chennai is no exception.

FOSS Confs :-

Thanks to KDE for sponsoring me during Desktop Summit, Berlin to present a talk It was great place to meet people whom i been chatting via IRC for many years. 🙂

I was also at Software Freedom Day celebration at Jaya FOSS club, Chennai. Thanks to the organizers for this wonderful event.

Travelling :-

As a amature photographer i did traveled across Chennai(TN) thanks to @suseendranrb @johnson81385 @eternaltyro  thyagoo for all the trips, many more are in pipeline for 2012 😀

After Desktop Summit in Aug 2011 i took a week off and traveled few places in europe like Athens/Rome/Madrid, I admit am lazy, still i have put some photos of my trip at http://www.atuljha.com/photos

Technology:-

Before coming to Chennai i was a simple Linux sysadmin and FOSS advocate. Things are better now, 😛 I have started coding and working around open source cloud computing platform like openstack and eucalyptus.

I was lucky to contribute few patches 2 Ubuntu openstack packages, any patch is a patch i been told. 😀 Most of my contribution are at lauchpad I am currently spending some time playing with juju and owncloud, i will be presenting some workshop on the same in coming months. 🙂

Reading:-

Well most of my friends would be surprised to hear that am reading fiction/short stories instead of only reading tech books. I am totally addicted to Khushwant Singh and finished 5 of his books so far, hoping to get few more next month via @flipkart

2012?

Well 2012 wishlist includes learning Python and Hadoop apart from travelling some awesome place like Ooty/Kundapura/Munnar/Cochin in India.

Looking forward to make 2012 another rocking year of my life!!

EOF