[Rdo-list] Trystack.org (Free, Public OpenStack) is Back!

[Kambiz Aghaiepour]

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
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