openstack team mailing list archive

[Thorsten von Eicken <tve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 7/7/2011 8:53 AM, Soren Hansen wrote:
> 2011/7/7 Vishvananda Ishaya <vishvananda@xxxxxxxxx>:
>> I think we should move toward ec2 being a compatibility layer that is translated into the os api.  This compatibility layer would sit at the top level zone and could maintain its own database for conversion of ids, management of secret and access keys, etc.
> With all due respect, I think this is a terrible idea. From a
> technical perspective, a backend that is flexible enough to support
> both the EC2 and the OpenStack (and OCCI and vCloud and whatever else)
> APIs without translation layers is a good thing and helps keep the
> separation clean.
>
> From an adoption perspective, like it or not, EC2 is popular. Lots of
> people use it and are comfortable and familiar with its API. I don't
> see what we'll win by so thoroughly reducing the EC2 API to a second
> class citizen in Nova.
I totally agree. I understand the issues around "an API we don't
control" but the EC2 API has stood the test of time and a LOT of
evolution. I have yet to work with a cloud API that comes anywhere close
to it. There's a lot of benefit in treating it as a first class citizen
in the OpenStack project (or at least as a 1.5th class citizen). Yes, it
will cost some extra discussions, but that's worth it. The native API
may one day make the EC2 one uninteresting, but that day is not yet on
the horizon. I hope I'm not offending anyone, just trying to look at the
reality. And yes, we are targeting the native API in our OpenStack support.
    Thorsten