TryStack is back! == What is TryStack? == TryStack is a community and partner sponsored project hosting a free, public (to the world) OpenStack sandbox. Hardware, time and resources are donated by various partners and the project is sponsored by the OpenStack Foundation. Note: Usage is temporal (see below for details) and is used for sandbox and testing purposes. == Background == After some extended downtime moving datacenter and hardware trystack.org is back up and running now in its new home on new hardware running RDO Kilo. TryStack has been available since 2012 across every major OpenStack release but has undergone a major revamp. http://trystack.org/ == Deployment and Infrastructure == There are a number of additional hardware upgrades coming (both in terms of system expansion as well as switch upgrades). Here is the high-level infrastructure currently: * 12 x Dell c6105 Servers - 16 x AMD Opteron 4376 HE - 96G MEM * RHEL 7.1 (running RDO Kilo) * Juniper EX4300 Switches * /24 public IP network (248 floating IPs) Deployment methodology used was via Foreman 1.7.4 and packstack manifests massaged into Foreman Hostgroups. Future upgrades may see adoption of RDO Manager as we start using it in other environments internally. == Monitoring and Health == We've also implemented Nagios monitoring with some advanced checks in place, including one that tests floating IP allocation from spin-up to teardown, covering weak areas like connectivity working but sshd failing (due to metadata-agent or similiar) which most monitoring fails to detect. Though we do not expose the Nagios interface externally, we have an up-to-date view of the host/service overview check that can be viewed at any time here: https://x86.trystack.org/dashboard/static/dashboard/nagios/ == Resources and Usage == In order to ensure that we do not exhaust the resources available on TryStack we have added additional resource pruning that accomplishes the following: * 24 hours after creation, instances deleted * 12 hours after allocation, FIPs released * 12 hours after being set, router gateways cleared (only apply to "facebook"* integrated accounts) We believe this to be an appropriate pruning schedule as it gives folks a chance to test OpenStack in the TryStack sandbox while ensuring that the /24 publicly routable subnet is not consumed rapidly, giving anyone interested in trying out TryStack to get better acquainted with the platform. (There is a 1 FIP quota available to FB accounts). Additionally there is ongoing collaboration with Netapp Engineers in integrating Manila with RDO. Lastly, TryStack web content has been moved under the purview of the upstream OpenStack Infra group and CI in order to ensure consistent management inline with how other OpenStack Foundation content is maintained. == Future Improvements == For future releases of RDO we intend to offer authentication integration via openstackid.org in addition to the current Facebook authentication. == Upgrades and Support == In keeping with the spirit of TryStack we'll be upgrading releases often as they are GA or pre-GA to test and showcase the latest and greatest RDO OpenStack has to offer. If you have any questions or need assistance you can reach the small but friendly and globally-distributed TryStack Ops team in freenode/#trystack on IRC. We can also be found via the TryStack Facebook group[1]. Thanks to my colleagues Will Foster and Dan Radez for their help in getting everything up, Matt Galgoci from IT/ACS Network team for help with connectivity and Paul Belanger for moving web content under upstream CI. [1] - http://www.facebook.com/groups/269238013145112 -- Red Hat, Inc. 100 East Davie Street Raleigh, NC 27601 "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." --Thomas Jefferson