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From: Jan Willem Janssen <janwillem.janssen@luminis.eu>
To: "users@ace.apache.org" <users@ace.apache.org>
Subject: Re: [feedback] hurdles when working with ACE
Thread-Topic: [feedback] hurdles when working with ACE
Thread-Index: AQHRVSP9a6OcHq7MvEC6t9N3wqfHh58MWSgAgABbdACAAujSgA==
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2016 16:57:52 +0000
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Hi Pepijn,

Thanks for your elaborate feedback! See my remarks/questions inline.

> On 25 Jan 2016, at 21:32, Pepijn Noltes <pepijnnoltes@gmail.com> =
wrote:
> [=E2=80=A6]
> My issues/improvements:
>=20
> - Simpler setup out of the box.
>=20
> The server-allinone contains a lot of feature I personally do not
> use/need. This makes jumping into Apache ACE difficult.
> For example - also mentioned by Daan - the need to approve targets is
> not needed our current use case, but we have to work around this.
> An other item is the four levels (artifacts, features, distributions
> targets) as I understand this is adaptable, but out of the box there
> are four.

I think we should rethink how ACE by default is going to handle new
targets. With your and Daan=E2=80=99s feedback I do see a real need for =
that.

> - Support docker
> Make it possible to "deploy" docker images using Apache ACE. Docker is
> becoming more popular by the day and in my opinion rightly so.
> Provisioning docker images in a more controlled manner is IMO still
> missing.
>=20
> Although using Apache ACE to runtime deploy sets of bundles can be
> very flexible and powerful in my experience sometimes a pre-created
> OSGi docker image is preferable.
> This minimizes the "entropy" of the system by introducing composed
> OSGi bundles used in a (more) deterministic manner. Although
> theoretically continuously deploying/undeploying bundles on a OSGi
> container should work, in practice this can lead to issues (note that
> should be considered bugs, but still). Also pre-created docker images
> can be tested as-is and therefore be qualified as whole.
>=20
> A combination would be interesting, so default bundles and the
> possibility to use Apache ACE to update default bundles / sprinkle on
> additional bundles.
>=20
> Provide A minimal OSGi client containing the ACE agent and make this
> images easy extendable by adding additional bundles / configuration
> files. (See INAETICS (github) for a minimal OSGi client example).

I see two ways ACE could support Docker: either by provisioning =
pre-built
Docker images (tarballs) or by provisioning the Dockerfile only and let
the agent on the target build the Docker image for you. Not sure yet
which one is =E2=80=9Cbetter=E2=80=9D. At the moment, I=E2=80=99m =
prototyping and playing a bit
with a custom agent that could handle this, just to see how this might
work.

> Focus on making development of cluster / distributed systems more easy
> without restarting the cluster. So updated bundles / docker images and
> restarting ACE client should be possible and easy.

Do you mean that ACE is acting as a cluster manager, or just provides
the ability to provision multiple targets in a =E2=80=9Ctransactional=E2=80=
=9D manner
(all or nothing approach)?

> =E2=80=93 Use the capability-requirement model resolving
>=20
> I would prefer using the capability requirement model to match what to
> deploy instead of coupling artifact2feature, etc. Although this could
> maybe be to complex, I think it's worth thinking about.
>=20
> Especially combining this with docker images (e.g. using docker labels
> to add Provide-Capability / Require-Capability ) could be a
> interesting feature. This could help in solving a problem where OSGi
> is very good at, running mircroservices with multiple versions of
> services. But in this case mircoservices means REST services provided
> by docker containers.

Interesting point. Need to ponder about this a little longer on how
this would work out.

> =E2=80=93 Runtime configuration
> When using Apache ACE I often ran in the desire the edit/update the
> configuration file used. A more =E2=80=9Cinline=E2=80=9D support to =
updating (e.g.
> enable debug printing) small configuration files would be nice.

Do you mean the configuration of ACE itself, or the configuration
that is provisioned to the targets?

> - Monitor targets
> Maybe out of scope for Apache ACE, but also something I noticed would
> be very welcome when using Apache ACE, is a more elaborate monitoring
> of the targets. Maybe even something like a heartbeat to ensure the
> target is alive.

The fact that a target periodically sends feedback would actually
provide this information already. But I think you mean that the UI
should actively report when it hasn=E2=80=99t seen/heard from a target =
in
a while?

> - No gosh
> I understand that gosh is very powerful, but I see it as yet another
> scripting language I prefer not to learn. I would prefer a more
> feature rich / responsive HTML UI and better supported REST api.

Fair point: gosh isn=E2=80=99t the most intuitive way of talking to ACE. =
We
need to come up with another way of doing that from a end-users
perspective (RESTish responsive UI) and from an automation point of
view (for automated deployments, CIs, etc).

--
Met vriendelijke groeten | Kind regards

Jan Willem Janssen | Software Architect
+31 631 765 814


My world is something with Amdatu and Apache

Luminis Technologies
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7314 BZ  Apeldoorn
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