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Fedora Cloud Product Requirements Document.
= Purpose and Demographic =
= Document Purpose and Overview =
The ''Cloud Edition Working Group'' targets efforts towards the
This is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_requirements_document Product Requirements Document] for the Fedora Cloud SIG. It:
facilitation and improvement of continuous delivery by ensuring that Fedora project
* Provides a high-level market of the cloud computing market as it pertains to the Fedora Cloud SIG; this includes overviews of things which may not be within our actual scope/ability to accomplish at the current time.
solutions support cloud native workflow without forcing users to understand all of the
* Provides deeper understanding of the types of users who could use Fedora for their cloud computing needs. This includes describing their main day-to-day tasks, common problems, and so on. The perspective here is not necessarily limited to system administrators, or developers, but a combination of many types of users and roles.
environments in which they require enablement.
* Ties common issues and needs of potential users and consumers of the Fedora Cloud product to high-level product needs, from a "functional" standpoint
* Provides solutions, in the form of "changes" or "features" which will provide the functionality described as needs for the potential users.
= Release/Product Overview =
Fedora Cloud provides a customizable base image and tools for developing scale out applications on public and private clouds, as well as two to four images pre-configured for what we expect to be the most popular scenarios/use cases for using Fedora for cloud computing.
Public and private cloud adoption is taking off, and the requirements for an image OS differ significantly from the requirements for a desktop or server OS. In these environments, much or all of the instance lifecycle — from the creation of the image and addition of software or configuration specific to the instance, to the teardown of the image — will be automated.  Systems are designed to scale out via many identical nodes rather than scale up with carefully-tended individual servers. Individual uptime (mean time between failure) is not as important as the ability to get a new instance running quickly (mean time to recovery).
With that in mind, we're tailoring a release specifically for cloud environments.
== Market Opportunity ==
Public and private cloud adoption is happening rapidly, but the market is not yet mature and is relatively ripe for disruption even though some favorites have emerged as early leaders.
In the next two to three years, we expect to see a great deal of growth in adoption and still see a number of emerging players where no clear favorites have emerged (for instance, Google Compute Engine). Additionally, some platforms (Amazon Web Services) have matured to a point where a large number of companies are relying upon the technology for their full infrastructure. While this is not a widespread practice, AWS is seeing a great deal of adoption and will likely start eating into "traditional" workloads that currently live behind the firewall.
In short, there's an enormous opportunity for Fedora to become an instance-OS of choice if the project moves quickly, develops or adopts the right technologies, and succeeds in educating the market about its existence. A failure on any of those three points means that the Fedora Cloud product will have little chance in taking a significant portion of the new market or taking any of the existing market.  


=== Major Release Themes ===
= Product Objectives =
Cloud computing in general is the transition of computing power from individual hand-tended resources to a ubiquitous utility. Fedora fits in at several levels, from the infrastructure service software we include (like OpenStack and Eucalyptus) to end-user tools.
The ''Fedora Cloud Edition'' allows users to work across multiple virtual environments at
scale by focusing engineering efforts on supplying a base disk images, rpms, and
container-based tooling of various architectures for working in and around public and
private cloud environments.  


The Fedora Cloud image fits into middle of this, providing a guest OS image to run on Infrastructure as a Service systems, on which platform and application services can be deployed. We targets use cases which fit the "cattle" side of the "[http://www.slideshare.net/randybias/architectures-for-open-and-scalable-clouds pets vs. cattle]" metaphor for computing.
== The Fedora Cloud Base Image ==
There are many requirements for building and deployment into the various options for
private and public clouds. The primary goal for the Cloud Edition is the Fedora Cloud Base
Image. The Cloud Base image provides disk images for all of the environments that can be tested
and confirmed to be functional. It is foundational to additional configurations and
initiatives that require an image-based deployment model.


We also need to address demand for Linux containers. Docker, Rocket (rkt), systemd-nspawn, as well as orchestration technologies (Kubernetes, Mesos, etc.) are going to play a huge role in developing, deploying, and managing cloud services. The Cloud Working Group needs to address these technologies and help guide their development within Fedora.
== Adaptations for Hyperscaler Use Cases ==
Some use cases may be considered as antithetical to the goals of other edition deployment
models, but have a strong use case to be included by default in hyperscalers. The use of
cloud-native components is continually evolving and highly opinionated, so there is added
benefit to including these curated images for use in the exploration of new technologies
and scientific reproducibility.


=== Secondary Objectives ===
At the 2020 Power Management and Scheduling in the Linux Kernel summit (OSPM)[1], Andrea
Aside from adoption and development of applications on top of the Fedora Cloud images, we have a few secondary goals that will be helped by wider adoption:
Righi and Rafael Wysocki discussed the use of hibernation on cloud-based systems and
* More testing of Fedora images with additional bug reports.
reviewed work that they have done in support of the program. Jonathan Corbet points out
* Better feedback about how the product should improve. This is separate from "bug reports" in that we hope to engage the audience and receive detailed feedback about use cases, desired features, developing trends in cloud management, etc.
that "[t]he value there is to be able to pause a workload to save money. For example,
* Patches and contributions that will help improve the product, and Fedora in general. As we are increasingly successful, more users will take an interest in helping to develop our product.
Amazon's ''spot instances'' run at low priority when there are spare resources available;
they can be shut down with ten minutes notice at any time."  With support from the Cloud
Edition team, the agents and kernel support can be maintained consistently and
reliably.


== Target Market / Audience ==
There are a number of example use cases to explore in both traditional and non-traditional
Developers and operators creating scale out applications on top of public and private clouds, and organizations and users running those applications. Fedora is particularly interested in organizations that might want to contribute back to Fedora and be involved in helping find/report/fix bugs, and develop new features.
ways and some of them are included in the next section. This use cases section is intended
== Delivery Mechanisms ==
to be updated as time goes on to identify specific initiatives and configurations that the
Cloud images must be easy to consume as part of a public or private cloud. Because we target these environments, we won't be worrying about physical media at all. The cloud images also won't be "installed" in the same manner that users are accustomed to with desktop or server images. The cloud image will simply boot in its target environment ready to run, or for further customization and configuration via a boostrapping service.
Cloud Edition can support.
=== Where to obtain ===
Users will be able to obtain the images for public clouds via download ''or'' via the usual marketplace for those images. For instance, we publish AMIs directly to the [https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace AWS Marketplace]. Users are able to launch new instances with Fedora without having to obtain the images directly from the Fedora Project and then upload to AWS.
Users will be able to download appropriate images for Apache CloudStack, Eucalyptus, OpenStack, OpenNebula, and other IaaS platforms.


=== Delivery Format ===
== Example Use Cases ==
Images will be delivered as AMIs on Amazon EC2, and as downloadable images in qcow2 and raw.xz formats. We may add other public cloud images and other downloadable formats to meet demand or anticipated need.
=== An Example: Base image for use with Cloud IDE ===
=== Architectures ===
The use of Fedora as a foundation for IDE environments such as the Amazon ''Cloud9'' IDE
requires curation and support. When it is not properly prepared, it cannot be included as
a part of the product offerings available to users who might wish to use them. A curated
package group is beneficial, but insufficient for Amazon service teams to trust that there
will be continued support. The Cloud Edition is consistent with other Fedora Editions, but
includes some active modifications to ensure support for next-generation technologies that
would not be possible with systems intended to be more consistent with downstream
directives.


Starting F24, we will be targeting 64-bit x86 and drop 32-bit x86. As ARM-based cloud systems become available, we will add ARM images.
=== An Example: Base Image optimized for use with cloud native Kubernetes services ===
Amongst the hyperscaler cloud infrastructures there are those services where a specialized
internal community is served. One for which the standard Fedora Editions does not include
specialized support. Optimizing images for use with downstream platforms, i.e. not OKD or
Red Hat OpenShift, for managing containerized workloads the cloud images can be for
example, Kubernetes (k8s): Support for k8s is,in all cloud providers, an opinionated
configuration that fits specifically an immutable operations model.


=== Updates ===
=== An Example: (EDA) Electronic Design Automation ===
Fedora Cloud images can be updated using [[dnf|DNF]] or [[yum|YUM]] as normal. We also intend to produce periodic respun images with security updates, once the infrastructure is in place to support that.
EDA workloads typically target their support towards stable, downstream EL distributions
and are therefore not capable of moving as quickly as distributions like Fedora. With the
use of cloud-native technologies, it's clear that the design world is at last ready to
engage agile processes for the development of system-on-chip (SoC) design. The electronic
design automation (EDA) industry is maneuvering itself into position that makes new
technologies critical to decreasing time to market. Almost all of the pieces to facilitate
an SoC methodology are in place in terms of cloud-managed development tools. The industry
open access model is an ideal dovetail to ensure that the Fedora Cloud Edition can be a
target for early development and adoption of advanced technology.


=== Image Creation Toolkit ===
For EDA, there is an expectation that a significant number of applications will run
We will also maintain a set of tools that can be used to generate, modify, and configure Fedora instances for use with public and private clouds. Initial efforts will focus on creating official images in Fedora's build system. This effort is in parallel to that and does not block the main release. The Fedora Cloud SIG is also interested in a curated library of image templates.
generally in the same operating space. Additionally as function specialization occurs, it
Unofficial templates will be made available through a peer-reviewed portal, so that users can use these templates with confidence to bootstrap their own images.
will be beneficial to have an engineering specialization in tailoring these specialized
operating systems to the requirements of software-defined architecture.


== Measuring Success ==
== Focus on the familiarity of the users. ==
Currently, Fedora is not a widely used option for instances on public and private clouds. We know there's some usage, but it's not one of the top three or four OSes on Amazon or (likely) for private clouds.
There are many people who have not advanced to the level of using container-based models
Success looks like:
for their bespoke code or operations practices. We don't want to leave them
* Increase in adoption.
behind. Furthermore, there are still established practices which can only support
* Third party support / targeting of Fedora Cloud as a platform.
containerization in part. Supporting these transitional and hybrid models is the focus of
* Increased contribution and participation in the Fedora Cloud WG and Fedora Project in general.
the Cloud Working Group.are looking at ways we can build support for next-generation
= User Profiles, Goals, and Primary Use Cases =
support models.
== User Profiles ==
There are three cloud user roles which describe the tasks of the people who interact with any cloud-based system:
# Cloud Service Creator: Develops the technical and business aspects of a (simple or high-level) cloud service
# Cloud Service Provider: Provides all types of services to a Service Consumer
# Cloud Service Consumer: Consumes all types of services offered by a Service Provider
We will use a set of personas  to describe our target users and their respective needs. These users are primarily in the cloud service creator and cloud service provider roles.
This document lists the personas in summary form, with detailed  explanations of each one available in a separate document. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Cloud_Personas. These roles include aspects of cloud service creators, providers, and consumer.
# AWS enthusiast and Early Adopter
#* Writes and maintains a number of AWS-deployed applications including staging and production.
#* Works for a small start-up, primarily on his own. Automates as much as possible.
#  DevOps Team Member
#* Uses the cloud to do Ruby on Rails development utilizing virtual machines.
#* Works as part of a DevOps team responsible for all aspects of a set of applications.
#* Development, QA, and Production environments need to be identical.
# Web Developer
#* Concentrates on app development, not architecture, deployment, or operations.
#* Unlikely to care deeply about OS internals, cares that they can easily deploy the frameworks they want to use.
# Large-Environment Sysadmin
#* Interested in deploying self-service PaaS to lighten operational load
#* Will work closely with development team on deployment and development.  
# Data Scientist
#* Works with large data sets
#* Interested in big data tools and dedicated scripting languages (R, Octave, etc.)
# HPC Scientist
#* Moving from traditional batch and grid technology to the cloud.
#* Interested in hybrid cloud (infrastructure overflow) for some massive computation campaigns.
== Primary Use Cases ==
=== Web Application Deployment in a Public Cloud ===
Modern web applications are deployed as a collection of interconnected services, including parts like web servers, application servers, databases, and caching layers. Fault tolerance is handled at the overall orchestration level rather than by individual instances. Fedora Cloud can be the base of each of these parts, providing recent libraries, server software, and language toolchains. Each system will be managed using the public cloud's own management tools plus a configuration management system like Puppet, Chef, Salt, or Ansible.
Code may be developed against different language stacks; if these are readily available to users, that's a win. In the real world, libraries and other code we don't include may also be required and we should make that as painless as possible.
Fedora Cloud will provide access to the following stacks (not exhaustive):
* Ruby: Rails, Sinatra
* Python 2 & 3: Django, Pyramid, Flask
* PHP 5.x: Symfony2, ZendFramework 2.x
* Node.js
* Java
* Perl 5.x
* Go


=== Web Application Deployment in Private Cloud ===
Many users of applications software have decades of experience interacting with a base
As above, but in a locally-deployed and managed private cloud system.
operating system standard actions. They may not yet be able to move their practice to an
=== Web Application Deployment in Hybrid Cloud ===
immutable OS model or use projects that abstract away from decades of \*nix software
As above, but rather than a single cloud provider, the application seamlessly takes advantage of resources in both a private and public cloud.
development models.
=== Hybrid Cloud as Staging Area ===
Application development and testing happens in-house on a private cloud, while production goes to a public cloud.
Possible scenarios: Using an open source IaaS stack internally and externally (e.g. OpenStack internally, Rackspace externally; Eucalyptus internally, AWS externally; CloudStack internally, any of the CloudStack providers or AWS externally; or using a library like jClouds to smooth out the bumps.) This may include identical software stacks which run in different clouds, or cloud-specific tailored images onto which an application is deployed, or even very different environments under which the same Docker container is run.
=== Simple Deployment of Code from Development to Production ===
As a developer, I want to ensure that my code is easily deployable from my development environment to a QA environment and finally a production environment, without encountering compatibility issues or surprises from differences in the environment. A solution where an identical customized image or container (such as Docker) is used in all three environments is ideal.  


= Target IaaS environments =
== An established practice for investigating the best model for deployment and governance ==
The Fedora Cloud product can be used as a guest/VM/image under many IaaS services and providers. For projects that are not currently packaged within Fedora/EPEL, we may need to locate a kind person to ensure testing. These include:
In many cases, cloud providers may determine that their opinionated model is the best or
Open source IaaS systems:
singularly valid model. This may be the result of focused groups or Product Managers who
* OpenStack
do not have a familiarity with the possiblities of incorporating open source into their
* Eucalyptus
active process due to concerns of any sort. It is a function of the cloud working group as
* Apache Cloudstack
curators of the edition to actively explore these management models and software decisions
* OpenNebula
as a method to either determine the best of class open source interaction or to identify
* oVirt
in a way that is acceptable to the greater Fedora community exactly why the current model
Public clouds:
is not handled in an [https://www.theopensourceway.org/ open source way].
* Amazon EC2
* Google Compute Engine
* HP Cloud
* Rackspace
* Digital Ocean
* Linode
= Features =
== Feature: Ready to run in Public and Private Clouds ==
The Fedora cloud image is ready to go out of the box in the public and private cloud environments we target. It includes cloud-init, the defacto standard for boot-time configuration for cloud instances, and heat_cfgtools package, which is used for handling guest initialization with OpenStack Heat.
== Feature: Ready Access to Fedora Collection of Packages ==
* Access to the standard Fedora package repositories
* Standard language stacks (like Python, Ruby, NodeJS, PHP)
* Modernized language and application-specific stacks, perhaps in the form of SCLs, for running userspace applications
== Feature: Updated Images ==
Currently, the Fedora Cloud images are only produced twice-yearly as part of the general Fedora release. Because Fedora updates constantly, this means that after several months, it is often the case that a newly-launched image has pending updates which effectively replace the entire content. This is slow and wastes bandwidth, and in many cases means that users simply never update.
Instead, we will produce images with security updates and critical bugfixes rolled in. Our initial target is monthly releases, with special updates produced for critical security flaws.


== Feature: Cloud -> Server ==
Examples of opinionated models are the use of python 2.7 in Google's gcloud sdk or the practice
The Fedora Server product targets more traditional server roles, where systems have a more unique identity. The Fedora Cloud image supports this by providing a path to go from our base to a Fedora Server role, in effect taming one of your cloud computing "cattle" and making it into a "pet" traditional server — but running in a cloud environment.
of clobbering the systemd-acpid \`sleep.sh\` file in the Amazon Hibernation Agent. Simply
put, these are problems for the Cloud Edition to resolve and to help work with the
upstream teams responsible to make their applications functional in the context of the
Fedora Distribution and downstream Enterprise Linux.


== Feature: Atomic Host ==
As a part of the working group, this team builds, monitors and improves the upstream
The Atomic Host provides an easy means to keep your container infrastructure up to date. Atomic provides git-like updates and roll backs of your host packages so your containers can keep running, secure and stable. The Atomic spin will provide updates every two weeks, ensuring that your host receives the latest system updates.
experiences complicated by closed or non-standard models to ensure that there is a path
forward to remove the barriers that block open source success for the cloud communities to
which we are aligned.


== Feature: Dockerfiles ==
= Architectural Considerations =
Fedora Dockerfiles provides a curated list of Dockerfiles designed to work with Fedora - making both development and deployment of your Docker infrastructure easier. By maintaining a list of supported Dockerfiles, we're able to better saturate the container ecosystem, making it easier for developers to use Fedora in their stack from end to end.
== Boot Support ==
* Legacy Bios or ''Classic Boot''
* UEFI


== Future Features ==
  The Boot support is dependent upon a number of other considedations. Neal Gompa's collaborative work with the Red Hat team has made our images ready for both without modification. Aarch64 is UEFI only.  
The following areas are unlikely to be completely addressed in the upcoming iteration of Fedora Cloud, but we intend to work on them in the future.
=== Image Generation Tools ===
The official Fedora Cloud images will be produced in the Fedora build system (Koji) using kickstart scripts, Anaconda, Oz, and ImageFactory. We also want to provide tools and documentation so users can easily respin their own images. This will likely be using ImageFactory as well. We may provide a web-based service for user-created images.
=== Image or Image Template Library ===
In addition to the basic tooling for image creation, we want to enable sharing of user-created images and their recipies. This may apply to Docker or other container images in addition to images targetted at full virtualization.
=== Higher-Level Cloud Tooling ===
Initial efforts focus on individual cloud images. In the future, we want to address higher level concerns as well. These areas include:
# Orchestration
# Performance / Scalability / Failover
# Logging / Auditing
# Monitoring / Notification
# Database requirements


= Requirements =
== Processor Architecture Support ==
== Requirement #1: Reducing Image Footprint ==
* x86_64
Making the Fedora Cloud image fit in a smaller space. Storage is a significant cost element on cloud platforms.
* aarch64
=== Feature Addressed ===
Ready to run in Public and Private Clouds.
=== Priority ===
Nice to Have. The current cloud image is reasonably sized when compared to our competitors. However, smaller footprint has several advantages. Fewer packages means fewer updates and a smaller target for security problems. It makes it faster to download and deploy images across networks where the image storage and compute nodes run separately. And, reducing things our users don't really need gives more room to include things that they do.
=== Specific Areas ===
This requirement has several areas where effort will yield meaningful results. Each has its own level of effort, stakeholders, and dependencies.
==== Cloud-Focused Base Kernel ====
The cloud-focused base kernel will be a minimal kernel without many of the drivers traditionally necessary on hardware, like most PCI devices. The goal of having a custom kernel package is ultimately to reduce the size of the images which will reduce storage costs, make the images easier to move across networks between compute and image storage nodes.


Note that the kernel binaries will be shared across all of Fedora; the difference will be that not all modules will be packaged and included by default in the cloud image. This also means that it will be simple to add the other drivers if they are needed for special cases.
= Participants =
Currently the following people are involved in the Cloud Working group.


Effort is moderate; it includes defining the exact requirements of the smaller kernel, and creation and maintenance of that separation by the Fedora kernel team.
* [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Davdunc David Duncan]


==== Internationalization / Localization ====
* [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Dustymabe Dusty Mabe]
Fedora Cloud base images should only include a single default locale since it is meant to be used as an deployment target to save space. Other locales should be available through repositories. The idea is to rely on langpacks rather than the current RPM kludges which leave out internationalization, because that approach does not allow one to easily add language support later.
Effort required is fairly high, because the packaging tools do not currently have such support. It will also likely have some impact on all Fedora packagers, depending on the implementation, and may also involve changes to the packaging guidelines.
==== Included Documentation ====
Documentation has the same issue as internationalization: it is often not needed on each image but takes significant space, and cannot be easily added back if RPM is configured to exclude it initially.
Effort is similar to that for internationalization, although significant impact could be made by breaking out documentation from key packages included in the base image.
==== Refactoring Cloud-Init ====
Cloud Init was initially designed for a different distribution and is only loosely tailored for our needs. As it stands, it pulls in a rather large set of packages not used for other things. It is also written in Python, itself a large subsystem which it would eventually be nice to leave out of the base.
Effort is moderate, with some low-hanging fruit which may be addressed easily.
== Requirement #2: Improved Docker Integration ==
Docker is a popular tool for launching and managing application containers. This runs on bare metal, in virtualization on developers' machines, or in cloud guests.
Right now, Docker can be added to the cloud base image but isn't included by default. Docker itself is small, but infrastructure to support it includes Libvirt, which is not small. In order to make it easier to get started and to speed up use in production, we will produce a Docker-specific image.
Additionally, we want to create a library of Dockerfiles and possibly our own registry of images.
=== Feature Addressed ===
Docker support.
=== Priority ===
Should. This feature is an important change to support a variety of different teams working on PaaS (like OpenShift) and end-user delivery issues. That being said, since there is very little usage of Docker in those tools right now and the package is available in the repositories already, it won't be terribly detrimental to not have the image complete.
=== Effort required ===
High. We can produce the basic image with minor work, but SELinux is a key feature which will make us stand out from other systems on which Docker can be run. Additionally, producing official Docker container images depends on changes to the build system.
=== Stakeholders / Owners / Major Dependencies ===
The Cloud SIG and our users are the major stakeholders. The SELinux team is instrumental in delivering the functionality we would like to see. Fedora Infrastructure and Release Engineering are involved in updating the build system. And the official images will be produced through Release Engineering.
Major dependencies include:
* Better SElinux MCS separation incorporated in the policies shipped in Fedora.
* Creation of an agreed upon set of Dockerfiles for different tasks.
* ImageFactory support for creating Docker images, and that support integrated into Koji.


== Requirement #3: Automatic Production and Upload of Images ==
* [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Mhayden Major Hayden]
We will develop Fedora Cloud images using text-based descriptive files and use an automated toolchain that generates images for our targets and upload them where appropriate. Currently, this is done by hand. Automation is necessary to scale to multiple supported images and a growing set of targets.
Fedora images must pass automated QA before publication to ensure a minimum level of quality. In order to release updated images with confidence, automated testing is required, because we cannot expect the level of human attention which can be brought to a twice-yearly release.
=== Feature Addressed ===
Updated Images.
=== Priority ===
Must. We simply need this to be useful to our users, and therefore to be competitive.
=== Effort required ===
High. Work is currently ongoing with Release Engineering and QA to facilitate this process.
=== Stakeholders / Owners / Major Dependencies ===
The Fedora Cloud Working Group will work with Release Engineering in implementing and supporting the needed functionality.


== Requirement #4: Software Stacks for Various Languages ==
* [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Ngompa Neal Gompa]
People developing and deploying code on top of Fedora need access to the relevant language stacks. Fedora already provides the latest versions of many of these, but often real-world version dependencies do not match the Fedora cycle. We need some way of offering multiple versions of languages and software stacks. Additionally, it is ideal if support for a given version lasts longer than the 13-month Fedora lifecycle, so that moving from one release of the base to the next can be less painful.
The Cloud SIG plan to support the major languages:
* Ruby
* Python 2 & 3
* PHP 5.x
* Java
* Node.js
* Perl 5.x
* Go
We will provide infrastructure and support to volunteers who want to complete the supported stacks or bring new ones.
=== Feature Addressed ===
Ready Access to Fedora Collection of Packages.
=== Priority ===
Must. This addresses a key need of userbase.
=== Effort required ===
High. Access to existing Fedora packages is simple (we simply won't break what currently works), but Fedora does not currently have a good infrastructure for multiple versions of stacks or for decoupled lifecycles.
=== Stakeholders / Owners / Major Dependencies ===
Software in this area will be the responsibility of the Environments and Stacks working group.


== Requirement #5: Integration with Fedora Server Roles ==
* [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Dcavalca Davida Cavalca]
We simply want to make sure that the tools to convert a Fedora Cloud base image to a Fedora Server role are available and function.
=== Feature Addressed ===
Cloud -> Server
=== Priority ===
Should.  This helps tie the Fedora products together and makes the blurry lines  between the Cloud and Server product more understandable.
=== Effort required ===
Medium. Effort is primarily in coordination and testing.
=== Stakeholders / Owners / Major Dependencies ===
This effort will be done in collaboration with the Fedora Server Working Group.
== Requirement #6:  Tools for User Image Creation and Image / Template Library ==
We do not have a standardized process for end-user image creation, although we have several tools which can be used. We plan to develop this process and document it. This may also include an image library or a library of image creation templates, or both.
=== Features Addressed ===
Image Generation Tools,  Image or Image Template Library
=== Priority ===
Nice to have. This is not required for our initial launch.
=== Effort required ===
High.
=== Stakeholders / Owners / Major Dependencies ===
Image creation tools (Oz/ImageFactory, etc.), Fedora Websites, Fedora Documentation, Cloud SIG users in general.


== Requirement #7: Updated Web Site for Obtaining Cloud Images ==
* [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Salimma Michel Salim]
As we provides images for various use cases (ie: Big Data, PaaS hosting, scale-out apps, etc.) and various target platforms, we need an updated website.
Fedora provides its build toolchain and encourage the community to use it to build new products. The updated website should also reflect that by allowing folks to share and review the work done by their peers.
=== Feature(s) Addressed ===
Easy access to Fedora Cloud products and encouraging sharing in the community.
=== Priority ===
Must. A simple access to the cloud products is also a key argument to their success.
Should.  Providing a sharing platform to the community (as in not supported by  the Cloud SIG) and peer-review based system will allow to service better  our users and foster innovation.
=== Effort required ===
High. We need to define precisely what we want to show, and maintain the website.
=== Stakeholders / Owners / Major Dependencies ===
The Cloud SIG will work closely with Fedora Websites/Infrastructure and possibly Fedora Engineering if we need to develop specific apps and/or integrate with the existing Fedora infrastructure (like fedmsg).


== Documentation ==
* [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Chrismurphy Chris Murphy]
We aim to provide a comprehensive documentation covering users to developers.
Should. Provide narrative documentation to make it easier to use cloud images and use them as foundations to new products.
NTH. On a volunteer basis, we will maintain a knowledge base.
=== Fedora Project Documentation ===
The Cloud SIG will cooperate with the Documentation Project to provide documentation to users, and developers of Fedora Cloud Products.
=== Open Source Projects documentation ===
Ensuring that Fedora is well-represented, up-to-date in other open source project documentation...
= About this Document =
This PRD (Product Requirements Document) is an evolving document, created by the Fedora Cloud SIG Working Group as part of the process for designing the Fedora Cloud product. The framework for the PRD itself is currently in a draft state.
This document will evolve over time as the purpose of the SIG continues to be determined as the working group process gets under way and initial products start to get produced.
== Authors ==
Contributors to this document include:
* [[User:rbergero|Robyn Bergeron]]
* [[User:mattdm|Matthew Miller]]
* [[User:skottler|Sam Kottler]]
* [[User:Hguemar| Haïkel Guémar]]
* [[User:jzb| Joe Brockmeier]]
* [[User:frankieonuonga|Frankie Onuonga]]
* [[User:roshi|Mike Ruckman]]
== Reviewers & Contributors ==
The following people have contributed to the development of this document, through feedback on IRC, mailing lists, and other points of contact.
* [[User:mattdm|Matthew Miller]]
* [[User:skottler|Sam Kottler]]
* [[User:Hguemar| Haïkel Guémar]]
* [[User:jzb|Joe Brockmeier]]
* [[User:frankieonuonga|Frankie Onuonga]]
==  Credits ==
Some of the Cloud User Roles are based on “Description and Application of Core Cloud User Roles” ACM CHIMIT 2011, December 4 2011.
Some aspects of Fedora Cloud personas are based on [https://docs.google.com/document/d/16rkiXWxxgzGT47_Wc6hzIPzO2-s2JWAPEKD0gP2mt7E OpenStack personas] (licensed under CC-By 3.0)
==  Community Information ==
The Fedora Cloud SIG is one of many teams within the Fedora Project.
The Cloud SIG mailing list is located [https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/cloud here.]
Minutes and logs from IRC meetings related to the development of this document should be listed here as the document evolves.
== Approval History ==
Over time, it is expected that this document will undergo various rounds of review, approval, and editing; in the future, it may be rewritten for different releases of Fedora.
While one can review the history of a wiki document (by clicking the "history" tab), it is useful to provide explicit indicators of any major format changes, approvals, or indications of it being in a “final” state, in a list that can allow someone to quickly see that all of the prescribed layers of approval have occured.
* January 22, 2014: [http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/teams/fesco/fesco.2014-01-22-18.00.log.txt Approval by FESCo]
* January  8, 2014: Collaborative hackfest day.
* October 28, 2013: [http://fedoraproject.org/w/index.php?title=Cloud_PRD&oldid=358260 Initial Draft of template.]
* FutureDate: Approval by SomeGroup; link to any pertinent mail announcement and/or meeting minutes


== Document Conventions==
* [https://blog.centos.org/2022/03/new-centos-director-amy-marrich/ Amy Marrich]
=== Definitions and Acronyms ===
* AWS: [https://aws.amazon.com/ Amazon Web Services]
* Amazon EC2: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, a popular public IaaS, part of AWS
* IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service
* PaaS: Platform as a Service
* SaaS: Software as a Service
* PRD: Product Requirements Document
* [[EPEL]]: Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux
* CI: Continuous Integration
* CD: Continuous Delivery or Continuous Deployment
* [[SoftwareCollections | SCL]]: Software Collections
* [[Category:SIGs|Special Interests Groups]]: teams in charge of some aspects of Fedora Project
* NTH: Nice-to-have
* BZ: [[Bugzilla]]
* GUI: Graphical User Interface
* CLI: Command Line Interface
* API: Application Programming Interface
* RDBMS: Relational DataBase Management System
* [[FESCo]]: Fedora Engineering Steering Committee


* [https://fedoramagazine.org/joe-doss-how-do-you-fedora/ Joe Doss]


<references />
Many others have participated in the past and the projects a whole was
[[Category:Product_Requirements_Document]]
founded by the current (2022) [https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/council/fpl/ FPL], [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Mattdm Matthew Miller]. Matthew has been integral in
working on the scope and practices followed by the Cloud Working Group for many years.
 
 
= Project Status =
The Working group is '''ACTIVE'''
 
Currently the Cloud Working Group is focused on returning to status as
an [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/RestoreCloudEdition Edition].  Edition status lapsed as a result of a number of
changes. The first was a move to focus efforts related to cloud images
to include [https://projectatomic.io/ Project Atomic] as well as the standard cloud edition and
then a complication occurred when Fedora Atomic was replaced by Fedora
CoreOS. The directives for these working groups is distinctly
different and supports different goals related to downstream adoption
and support.
 
== Meeting Times ==
Bi-Weekly, every other Thursday. Currently we are supposed to be meeting at 15:00 UTC, but we have been meeting accidentally at 8:00 AM EDT daylight savings time. We are considering meeting on the 1st and 3rd of the month with a Video meeting on the 5th week of months that have a 5th week. Changing the meeting time would allow us to synchronize with the CentOS Cloud SIG for consistency.
 
----
=== Footnotes ===
 
[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/821158/n

Latest revision as of 20:45, 1 November 2022

Purpose and Demographic

The Cloud Edition Working Group targets efforts towards the facilitation and improvement of continuous delivery by ensuring that Fedora project solutions support cloud native workflow without forcing users to understand all of the environments in which they require enablement.

Product Objectives

The Fedora Cloud Edition allows users to work across multiple virtual environments at scale by focusing engineering efforts on supplying a base disk images, rpms, and container-based tooling of various architectures for working in and around public and private cloud environments.

The Fedora Cloud Base Image

There are many requirements for building and deployment into the various options for private and public clouds. The primary goal for the Cloud Edition is the Fedora Cloud Base Image. The Cloud Base image provides disk images for all of the environments that can be tested and confirmed to be functional. It is foundational to additional configurations and initiatives that require an image-based deployment model.

Adaptations for Hyperscaler Use Cases

Some use cases may be considered as antithetical to the goals of other edition deployment models, but have a strong use case to be included by default in hyperscalers. The use of cloud-native components is continually evolving and highly opinionated, so there is added benefit to including these curated images for use in the exploration of new technologies and scientific reproducibility.

At the 2020 Power Management and Scheduling in the Linux Kernel summit (OSPM)[1], Andrea Righi and Rafael Wysocki discussed the use of hibernation on cloud-based systems and reviewed work that they have done in support of the program. Jonathan Corbet points out that "[t]he value there is to be able to pause a workload to save money. For example, Amazon's spot instances run at low priority when there are spare resources available; they can be shut down with ten minutes notice at any time." With support from the Cloud Edition team, the agents and kernel support can be maintained consistently and reliably.

There are a number of example use cases to explore in both traditional and non-traditional ways and some of them are included in the next section. This use cases section is intended to be updated as time goes on to identify specific initiatives and configurations that the Cloud Edition can support.

Example Use Cases

An Example: Base image for use with Cloud IDE

The use of Fedora as a foundation for IDE environments such as the Amazon Cloud9 IDE requires curation and support. When it is not properly prepared, it cannot be included as a part of the product offerings available to users who might wish to use them. A curated package group is beneficial, but insufficient for Amazon service teams to trust that there will be continued support. The Cloud Edition is consistent with other Fedora Editions, but includes some active modifications to ensure support for next-generation technologies that would not be possible with systems intended to be more consistent with downstream directives.

An Example: Base Image optimized for use with cloud native Kubernetes services

Amongst the hyperscaler cloud infrastructures there are those services where a specialized internal community is served. One for which the standard Fedora Editions does not include specialized support. Optimizing images for use with downstream platforms, i.e. not OKD or Red Hat OpenShift, for managing containerized workloads the cloud images can be for example, Kubernetes (k8s): Support for k8s is,in all cloud providers, an opinionated configuration that fits specifically an immutable operations model.

An Example: (EDA) Electronic Design Automation

EDA workloads typically target their support towards stable, downstream EL distributions and are therefore not capable of moving as quickly as distributions like Fedora. With the use of cloud-native technologies, it's clear that the design world is at last ready to engage agile processes for the development of system-on-chip (SoC) design. The electronic design automation (EDA) industry is maneuvering itself into position that makes new technologies critical to decreasing time to market. Almost all of the pieces to facilitate an SoC methodology are in place in terms of cloud-managed development tools. The industry open access model is an ideal dovetail to ensure that the Fedora Cloud Edition can be a target for early development and adoption of advanced technology.

For EDA, there is an expectation that a significant number of applications will run generally in the same operating space. Additionally as function specialization occurs, it will be beneficial to have an engineering specialization in tailoring these specialized operating systems to the requirements of software-defined architecture.

Focus on the familiarity of the users.

There are many people who have not advanced to the level of using container-based models for their bespoke code or operations practices. We don't want to leave them behind. Furthermore, there are still established practices which can only support containerization in part. Supporting these transitional and hybrid models is the focus of the Cloud Working Group.are looking at ways we can build support for next-generation support models.

Many users of applications software have decades of experience interacting with a base operating system standard actions. They may not yet be able to move their practice to an immutable OS model or use projects that abstract away from decades of \*nix software development models.

An established practice for investigating the best model for deployment and governance

In many cases, cloud providers may determine that their opinionated model is the best or singularly valid model. This may be the result of focused groups or Product Managers who do not have a familiarity with the possiblities of incorporating open source into their active process due to concerns of any sort. It is a function of the cloud working group as curators of the edition to actively explore these management models and software decisions as a method to either determine the best of class open source interaction or to identify in a way that is acceptable to the greater Fedora community exactly why the current model is not handled in an open source way.

Examples of opinionated models are the use of python 2.7 in Google's gcloud sdk or the practice of clobbering the systemd-acpid `sleep.sh` file in the Amazon Hibernation Agent. Simply put, these are problems for the Cloud Edition to resolve and to help work with the upstream teams responsible to make their applications functional in the context of the Fedora Distribution and downstream Enterprise Linux.

As a part of the working group, this team builds, monitors and improves the upstream experiences complicated by closed or non-standard models to ensure that there is a path forward to remove the barriers that block open source success for the cloud communities to which we are aligned.

Architectural Considerations

Boot Support

  • Legacy Bios or Classic Boot
  • UEFI
 The Boot support is dependent upon a number of other considedations. Neal Gompa's collaborative work with the Red Hat team has made our images ready for both without modification. Aarch64 is UEFI only.

Processor Architecture Support

  • x86_64
  • aarch64

Participants

Currently the following people are involved in the Cloud Working group.

Many others have participated in the past and the projects a whole was founded by the current (2022) FPL, Matthew Miller. Matthew has been integral in working on the scope and practices followed by the Cloud Working Group for many years.


Project Status

The Working group is ACTIVE

Currently the Cloud Working Group is focused on returning to status as an Edition. Edition status lapsed as a result of a number of changes. The first was a move to focus efforts related to cloud images to include Project Atomic as well as the standard cloud edition and then a complication occurred when Fedora Atomic was replaced by Fedora CoreOS. The directives for these working groups is distinctly different and supports different goals related to downstream adoption and support.

Meeting Times

Bi-Weekly, every other Thursday. Currently we are supposed to be meeting at 15:00 UTC, but we have been meeting accidentally at 8:00 AM EDT daylight savings time. We are considering meeting on the 1st and 3rd of the month with a Video meeting on the 5th week of months that have a 5th week. Changing the meeting time would allow us to synchronize with the CentOS Cloud SIG for consistency.

Footnotes

[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/821158/n

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