[ovs-discuss] HA proposal for current OVN release cycle (was: etcd for OVN status update (was: Re: more about etcd (can it support big transactions and many monitors?)))

[Russell Bryant]

Thank you for the detailed updates on your progress!

On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 2:18 PM, Ben Pfaff <blp at ovn.org> wrote:

> My proposal is this:
>
> 1. Postpone the OVN etcd vs. Raft decision to the next release cycle in
>    6 months.  This will give etcd and its underlying infrastructure time
>    to mature, and in the alternative it will give proper time to
>    implement Raft in OVSDB.
>
> 2. Prioritize getting HPE's OVSDB replication patches into this current
>    cycle.  I do not think I've seen a revision of the patches since
>    March, so the first step would be to ask for a new version, and in
>    the alternative I'll take a look at revising them myself.
>
> Comments?
>

This sounds quite reasonable to me.  Roughly given choices of:

a) branch in July with active/passive HA for OVSDB

b) aim for etcd or ovsdb+raft, but no HA when we branch in July

c) aim for etcd or ovsdb+raft, and delay release until properly ready

I am definitely in favor of (a).

I think it's important to put out some regular releases that show our
progress.  Active/passive HA is still a significant upgrade over the
current state.  Having that and an on time release is still a successful
milestone in my book.

As briefly mentioned in the meeting today, one of our big questions will be
whether OVN is still experimental or not.  I'd love to take off the
experimental label.  To do so, I think we either need to be confident that
the northbound interface won't change (will remain OVSDB), or that we can
provide a reasonable automated migration path from OVSDB to etcd.  On the
surface, providing a migration seems reasonable enough.

Thanks,

-- 
Russell Bryant

-- 
Russell Bryant
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