

Synnefo + Ganeti = cloud software that works - vkoukis
http://www.synnefo.org

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Loic
I cannot comment on Synnefo itself, but Ganeti is a wonderful software. I have
been using it for more than a year in production (June 2011) without a single
issue. I even built my own PaaS on top of it[1].

If you want to understand the quality of Ganeti, go and take a look at an
example of design document[2]. The quality of the documentation, the time
spent in defining the requirements for the next release incorporating the
feedback from the users together with the quality of the code and the human
quality of the people at Google driving the project make it a pleasure to use
this software.

If you are not interested, I anyway always recommend people reading the
documentation of this project just to know that one can produce such good
documentation.

[1]: <http://notes.ceondo.com/mongrel2-zmq-paas/>

[2]: [http://docs.ganeti.org/ganeti/current/html/design-cpu-
pinnin...](http://docs.ganeti.org/ganeti/current/html/design-cpu-pinning.html)

~~~
kawsper
Bareku looks very interesting, but what are the benefits over something like a
simple Capistrano deploy script?

I have never heard about Ganeti but it also sounds promising.

~~~
Loic
Our designer can simply push the updates into the application git repository
and a new version of the application is deployed. It removes friction.

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turshija
Front page should be clearer and it needs a bit more explanation, I first
thought its cloud software for managing cloud and clients, but when I tried
the trial option I didn't see any client options so that means its a software
for managing own cloud vm's ? (but it has API, so it should be easy to build
client interface) Also the "trial" option makes me think there is paid option
somewhere, which is quite confusing since there isn't one, it should be
replaced with "Demo" maybe ?

~~~
vkoukis
It's cloud software for running a full IaaS service of your own, on your own
machines, with Ganeti at the backend. There is a client, called kamaki, see
<http://www.synnefo.org/docs/kamaki/latest/index.html>, but it's true we
should have a separate page for it.

About the "trial" option, we have it as "Try it out" on the first page of
<http://www.synnefo.org>. If you saw it on okeanos.io, we'll change it there
accordingly.

Anyway, have you had a chance to try out? :)

~~~
turshija
Yep, I've tried it, and it looks promising, and simple to use :) I've read the
"quick" installation, which is not quick at all ^^ I've subscribed to git rss
feed, and I will follow the development process a bit before trying out the
installation on own dedicated, and maybe even try developing the simple
"client" interface for our needs using the API provided if the backend proves
to be stable and good.

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ogdoad
Being a user of Synnefo/"Cloud" (and the ~Okeanos/"Ocean") systems for a
little while now, I have to comment with a simple "wow!". The amount and
quality of engineering that has gone into the project, as well as the quality
of the offered service is staggering. Most people involved in some manner in
the academic software engineering community (be it Greek or not) are
accustomed to receiving products that might on the one hand "work", within
finely specified limits, but are otherwise classified as more or less involved
hacks. Well, Synnefo both works like a charm and gives off an air of harmony
(in the integration of the components and the eventual end-user experience).

Kudos everybody on a job well done. Can't wait for the service to go public.

NB: The whole project is build on commodity hardware with opensource solutions
binding everything together. A whitepaper on its design and implementation,
and case studies for use etc, would be certainly lovely to read.

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druiid
So, how far exactly is the API compatible with Openstack? That's the one thing
that would be really necessary to match. Basically, can I take tools and
utilities that work with Openstack/keystone and have them working without
any/much work? If you're able to do this it would be a nice, simple
alternative to Openstack. For anyone installing Openstack for the first time,
the install is anything but simple.

~~~
cven
We try to be aligned with the OpenStack APIs as much as possible. The thing is
that even these APIs tend to change frequently. If you have a working
application of your own, you'll find that the changes needed are minimal. Our
goal is to be 100% and out-of-the-box compatible.

Two notes:

1\. Synnefo supports advanced operations e.g. dropbox-like syncing, so we use
custom extensions for that,

2\. We have a full-fledged python client library and associated command line
client for everybody to use, see
<http://www.synnefo.org/docs/kamaki/latest/index.html>

~~~
druiid
Okay, thanks. I didn't quite understand from what I read on the site though...
is the API accessible to TCP connections? Basically, can I spin up instances
via Cloudify or similar through a Openstack v2 compatible interface, etc?

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YesThatTom2
At the last LISA conference there was a talk by yours truly about Ganeti. It
explains Ganeti assuming you don't have much virtualization experience:

[https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa12/ganeti-your-
private...](https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa12/ganeti-your-private-
virtualization-cloud-way-google-does-it)

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StavrosK
This service is delightfully Greek. I haven't tried the actual offering,
though. I think the front page copy could be a bit clearer, as I'm hazy on
what exactly it does.

~~~
JshWright
>I think the front page copy could be a bit clearer, as I'm hazy on what
exactly it does.

Yeah... it's all greek to me...

