[OOTB-infra] Virtual Hackathon - Capability of hosting integration/demo environments?

[martin at bettercode.com]

Hi Axel
 
Interesting thoughts. I've just finished my own mammoth thread in this
list, I think it could address some of the needs you've raised here.
(It's really long, you probably want to scroll halfway down or so to the
infrastructure architecture bit ;-)
 
Cheers
Martin
 
--
  martin at bettercode.com
 
 
On Tue, 12 Jul 2016, at 05:57 PM, Axel Faust wrote:
> Hello INFRA,
> During the BeeCon hackathon and afterwards various members of the
> Order (incl Richard) discussed continueing with the tradition of doing
> global, virtual hackathons in the Alfresco community. We tentatively
> have agreed to aim for a Friday within September to have the hackathon
> and that it would be an Alfresco event (in terms of announcements /
> general organisation). But that doesn't exclude us from thinking about
> options for the Order to support such an event, and the community
> members that participate.
>
> One idea I had revolves around providing (short-term / temporary)
> hosting of integration or demo environments for hackathon project
> teams. Apart from potentially simplifying the setup / startup effort
> for new members of the community that participate, having a publicly
> accessible integration / demo environment for a hackathon project can
> also make it easier for other teams as well as Alfresco / Order
> "hackathon support staff" to check a project's progress; or act as a
> tester and provide suggestions for potential improvements.
>
> Now, before I spend any more time fantasizing about project build /
> server restart automation, the more immediate question on my mind is:
> *Could we as the Order with our current infrastructure support such a
> use case?*
> Forget for a moment the financial issues that obviously will need to
> be addressed at some time as well. Can we (with our current
> infratstructure and processes):
>


>  * Add VM(s) or host(s) to our domain within a few days (or with some
>    kind of self-service for a small set of authorised members in a few
>    hours) - same for tear-down after the event
>  * Support automation of instance setup / tear down, e.g. via command
>    line tooling either by agents on a host or via SSH
>  * Use open technologies / tools to avoid licensing issues when an
>    arbitrary number of users (from different backgrounds) use an
>    environment we temporarily provide / host
>  * Support simple update to any firewall configuration to forward
>    (dynamic) ports to the environments
>  * Support simple update to any proxy configuration to provide a
>    central HTTP(S) entry point
> ?
>
> A potential setup in my mind at this time is the following:
>  * a separate host or resource-constrained VM is used to bundle all
>    demo environment
> (a decent amount of memory, CPU and I/O needs to be provisioned, which
> is why I tend towards a separate host)


>  * Within that host / VM, container-based virtualization is used to
>    provide standardized installs for the environments
>  * Each environment is publicly accessible when using HTTP(S)-based
>    protocols using a host name like
>    <projectName>.hackathon.orderofthebee.org (ideally we use only
>    HTTPS which a proxy terminates using a common certificate of the
>    Order, and internally use HTTP/AJP)
>  * A port forward for SSH should be done for each environment (if the
>    environment will actually provide SSH, which a container might not)
>  * If host / VM is not publicly accessibe itself, a port forward for
>    SSH needs to be done
>  * Host / VM polls GitHub of defined project for an environment,
>    builds project (Maven-based) and stops/starts container with
>    updated WARs
>  * Automation is in place to quickly (re-)initialize an environment as
>    project teams are formed / when a data reset is required
>    (automation would likely need to update DNS / host or VM firewall
>    settings)
> I would exclude most (if not all) of the trickier protocols / Alfresco
> interfaces for the time being, and only consider HTTP-based access.
>
> Even if we don't end up doing something in that direction for the
> hackathon (for cost/time/resource reasons), I would like to see us
> able to dynamically provide short-term integration / demo environments
> some day in the (near?) future, e.g. to support similar needs for
> conferences / local meetups. So if we can't currently provide this for
> technical / conceptual reasons or limitations, I hope we can derive a
> strategy for (or at least a list of) items that we woulud need to
> address.
>
> So, what do you think? Are we currently in a situation that we could
> do something like this? And without excessive effort in terms of
> coordination / work, or too much reliance on the availability of a
> single or a few people?
>
> Again, this is just an idea of mine at the moment that I would like
> some input / discussion on. This has not yet been discussed on the
> board or with Richard / Ole, as it may be irrelevant if you tell me
> that I am "out of my mind"...
>
> Regards
> Axel
>
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