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

[martin at bettercode.com]

Sorry, I just realised my post was not in this list but in the long
thread currently running on ootb-hive
 
Martin
 
--
  martin at bettercode.com
 
 
On Tue, 12 Jul 2016, at 09:46 PM, martin at bettercode.com wrote:
> 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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