Open Source Sunbeam OpenStack – Tytus Kurek, Canonical

This is Textron TV With the great pleasure of being joined by Titus Keek, who is product manager with Canonical welcome, TIG Titus. Excuse me. Thank you, Mitch.

Um, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Good to be talking with you, and great to meet with you, uh, in Vancouver during the conference.

And, uh, hearing a little bit of an announcement, we're gonna talk about Sunbeam. Um, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you announced with Sunbeam, why you're pursuing it, and we can kind of get into what the reaction has been. I guess it's when been better months since, uh, the conference in Vancouver, so that you launch this.

Absolutely. So, uh, happy to talk about that. Uh, it's, uh, let me start.

It's been, you know, an, an exciting week, uh, there in Vancouver for the opening for Summit. We've seen a lot of new attendees, uh, joining the community, and a lot of people joining the summit for the first time. So, uh, it was a great, uh, pleasure for us to announce Sunbeam, uh, to this whole amazing crowd that we met over there.

So, um, Sunbeam, uh, is basically just to introduce it a little bit. It, it's a new project under the OpenStack tree. Uh, we have been working on it, uh, internally for a while that, uh, that was the right time to make it available for a broader community.

So right before the summit, we made the decision we're going to upstream everything. Uh, we went through the formal registration process and made it, uh, available under the governance of the Open Infra Foundation. So, uh, what it is, uh, well, uh, it, it's, it's a kind of an evolution path for us from what we've been doing with OpenStack for years.

Uh, for those of, uh, the community members who know us well, they know we've been involved in the OpenStack community since the very early beginning. Uh, we had our own distribution of OpenStack, uh, that, uh, uh, as, as with every software, uh, the usage of the software entails some challenges. So that was the right time for us to kind of take a step back and rethink everything that we've been doing with OpenStack.

And, uh, all of that resulted with a completely new reference architecture and tooling for OpenStack that we've now made available under the umbrella of Sunbeam. It's, um, you know, I, I happen to have a little bit of a history with OpenStack in using it from some of the earlier days, and kinda reminds me that a bit of the Spider-Man saying, uh, with great power comes great responsibility, but also comes with a lot of flexibility and sometimes complexity. And if there's been, one of the challenges, I think, with OpenStack not news to anybody, is, you know, like Kubernetes, like other things that have a lot of power and capabilities.

Sometimes that complexity can be, um, one of the challenges of adopting, but also, you know, operating. And it seems like that's directly what you're going after with Sunbeam, is how do you create sort of a center, center lane where you can get up and running on OpenStack, you know, relatively quickly without having to deal with every option, every parameter, and, and kind of start with a good known configuration. You're, you're absolutely right.

So this, this is exactly one of the biggest challenges that we've seen, uh, community members struggling, uh, for years, uh, since we got involved in the project, basically, right? So, uh, uh, OpenStack, uh, over years has grown to a kind of a super complex, uh, ecosystem consisting of, you know, like, uh, tons of services, uh, tons of supporting services, uh, you know, hundreds of configuration options and so on, uh, which is great, uh, on one hand because it's, uh, allows to compete with, you know, uh, like Hyperscaler Cloud solutions like, uh, a w s or Azure or Google, like, uh, uh, it's pretty much evident these days that there are hundreds of local cloud providers over the world, uh, who run like a public cloud infrastructure based on OpenStax. So it is definitely, uh, suitable for these kind of use cases bands, uh, at the same time, right?

Like the, the, the second angle is that it, it all results with its, uh, overall complexity. So what we've seen is that this complexity, uh, has been one of the biggest blockers for, uh, a broader open stack adoption for years. And, uh, our mission was to definitely, uh, focus on lowering the entry barrier so that, uh, everyone who's not familiar with, uh, OpenStack, who hasn't used that in the past, would be able to get started with it relatively quickly.

Uh, we were really committed to lowering down the number of required steps to get fully functional, OpenStack up and running, uh, uh, and, and we finally resulted with like five commands. This is what you need to get Sunbeam running, and we are really committed to lowering the footprint so that everyone would be able to start, uh, even on their workstation or, or a virtual machine, uh, not necessarily trying to find, you know, like a, a couple of spare hardware, which is not always available for everyone, right? Mm-hmm.

So these were kind of, um, kind of the goals that we decided to focus, uh, on as a priority, but there's obviously much more that comes, um, uh, with, with the overall complexity of OpenStack and needs to be addressed, and we have a plan to address it moving forward. This especially relates to, you know, any kind of day two operations. 'cause the initial deployment is usually just the beginning of a journey.

And, uh, at the end of the day, the cloud needs to be operated in production, not just for a couple of days, not just for a couple of weeks or months, bad for a couple of years, right? Uh, this is how the reality looks like in the data center space. You know, if, if you wanted to be a skeptic, I think, you know, you, someone might say, well, how are you gonna do that?

How are you gonna make OpenStack? You know, which is, could be very complex. Is complex, make that simpler, easier to use, quicker to install.

And if, and arguably given Canonicals history with Debian and kind of bringing that through, you know, through to fruition with, uh, Muntu and, you know, much, uh, broadly used, frankly, easy to use, seems like a lot of lessons from that experience might be applicable to Sunbeam. Is that true? And what maybe what some of those lessons are?

I think this, that's a great analogy. So, uh, not everyone might be aware of that, but, uh, yeah, canal, the company behind the Buntu, uh, uh, we, we, we, we created Buntu, uh, based on, uh, what existed in Dion, like, uh, 20 years ago. And I'm saying not everyone is aware of that because like, it's been a pretty long time, right?

So, uh, not everyone, uh, might, might potentially remember these days, but mm-hmm. It all started with Debon around 20 years ago. And, uh, at that point in time, uh, Debon was, uh, very major stable, fully functional Linux distribution, uh, with a broad, uh, application ecosystem available in a form of, uh, Devon packages devs.

Uh, but, uh, it, it was, uh, not usable by those who haven't had any kind of a previous Linux experience, right? So, uh, we are really committed to, um, uh, leveraging, uh, on all of the goodness that Debon had, uh, at that point, that also making it usable for humans, uh, like in a human friendly format, being consumable by humans. And, and this is how Buntu project has been started, right?

So, uh, uh, we've learned a lot, we've learned, learned a lot, uh, for those 20 years, obviously, uh, with, uh, you know, various requirements coming from various parts of compute, right? Like, uh, people working with Linux, uh, in public clouds have different requirements, uh, compared to those who are working with Linux, uh, in the iot space, for example, right? So this, this obviously over time, uh, created a needs, uh, for various types of, uh, add-ons and, and functionalities that, uh, with, with put on top of tu uh, and again, uh, this, all of that would not be possible with just, uh, Debon, right?

So, uh, I think, I think this is a good analogy. I think OpenStack is, uh, in a very similar stage these days, like this major, it is stable. It is secure, uh, it is, uh, very much functional, as I said, you know, like, it, it can successfully compete even with Hyperscalers, right?

But it is a little bit messy. And, uh, needs, needs to be, needs to get a little bit opinionated, uh, by, by, by a company like us who would be able to steer the directions, uh, to, to set the directions for its development moving forward, and, uh, making it accessible for humans, making it available for the entire state of, uh, you know, uh, it people who have not, who, who don't, who don't have any kind of previous experience with Linux or, or cloud computing is definitely one of the way to get there. Fantastic.

So, open Infrastructure Summit was early mid-June, if I remember Rights, 13th or 14th. Um, so it's been been a month or a little more than a month since, uh, the announcement. Sunbeam, talk about some of the reactions, some of the adoption, you know, now that you've launched the baby, right?

That hits out in market and people can, can give it a try. What's been the reaction so far? It is an exciting time when the product hits the market for the first time, indeed, right?

Like, uh, immediately we get a lot of feedback coming from, you know, like, uh, people blogging about it, commanding on, you know, various types of social media channels like Reddit or Hacker News. Uh, but you also talk to people, uh, even during the event, uh, as, uh, as, as you said, you know, we've seen a lot of people coming to Chemical Booth to, to learn a little bit about it or to try it. Uh, but, uh, there, there's also been, uh, a bunch of, uh, commercial interest that has, uh, immediately erased.

So, uh, the announcement of Sunbeam and, and, uh, the, the extension of our commercial open stack offering, uh, that was made part of the, uh, announcement basically unlocked, uh, a huge market for us that we have not been able to target, uh, as a company before. And, uh, this, this includes all types of small scale cloud environments that, uh, we are not really ready for, uh, as our, uh, only commercial distribution that we had, charmed OpenStack was available, uh, only for a medium or a large scale, right? So, uh, there, there is, uh, there is a, there, there, there, there are some use cases where a small scale, uh, cloud, uh, clouds environments are in demand.

And, uh, whenever there is a need for an OpenStack a p i compatibility, sandem is a perfect, um, uh, use case for it, right? Sun Sandem is a perfect fit for it. So, uh, this first of all includes, you know, like the entire, uh, edge, edge infrastructure state, right?

Like with, with service providers trying to bring OpenStack, uh, to the Edge sites. But this also includes, you know, small scale, few more clusters, for example, with where organizations have been using them for years and now are trying to migrate into open source because of, uh, cost savings or, or, or something. So, uh, there's been, there's been a lot of feedback, uh, uh, mostly positive.

Uh, some people are surprised that, uh, it is as simple, like they didn't expect it's going to be that simple, right? Like, we made a lot of promises that we will lower the entry barrier, but I think not everyone has been expecting it can be done as simple, right? So, uh, that, that's been an amazing feedback and, uh, we're really looking forward to what the next couple of months are going to bring.

I, I would imagine if you've experienced OpenStack prior to Sunbeam, you probably need to experience Sunbeam to realize how much of an improvement, how, how, how, how much you've done and how, what the experience is like to make it more accessible, approachable. And, uh, I remember when we talked, um, one of my immediate thoughts was, yeah, this seems like, especially for the Edge, smaller infrastructure, private or public and service providers seems like a, a perfect opportunity for that. You know, someone who hasn't, it hasn't been as approachable, and now it is.

Uh, so for folks that want to kick the tires, give it a try, um, where do you suggest they go on the canonical site? Or is there somewhere else to, to go check out Sunbeam? Uh, absolutely.

So be, before I answer that, uh, one point to make, uh, to make, uh, so, uh, it is available, uh, uh, for small scale cloud environments today. But, uh, nothing blocks us, uh, uh, to expand, you know, uh, the, the support coverage for large environments as well. There are some, uh, pieces of the puzzle that we need to lend first to, to unlock large scale use cases for Sunbeam.

And, uh, it will quickly evolve as it has a dedicated engineering team behind it right now, uh, to ensure a full feature parity with, with Charmed Open Stack. Uh, so, uh, we, we expect it will be suitable for large scale use cases, uh, in a couple of months from now as well. But, uh, for all of those who would like to try it, right?

Like, as, as we think this is an ideal L solution that, you know, people can use to break the ice with OpenStack, right? Like, if they're afraid of trying OpenStack, they don't know where to start, we think this is an ideal l solution for them. Kiss again, as I said earlier, uh, they can get a fully functional OpenStack up and running in five steps on their workstation or in a virtual machine.

And, uh, uh, I think, uh, if, if this is something that people would be, would, would, would like to try, we would encourage them to go to our, uh, website, which is, uh, micro Stack Run. Uh, the relation between Sandem and Microt Stack is that while Sandem is more like a name of the upstream project that we maintain in the upstream under the governance of the, uh, foundation, while Micros Stack, uh, is a name of a commercial product that we've launched on top of that, at least for now. run, they'll find, uh, all the necessary materials that will enable them to get started with OpenStack and hopefully, uh, we really hope their first initial experience will be really positive as it should be with every open source project.

Excellent. Well, congratulations on the launch and, uh, the reactions since the, the conference and the launch. And, uh, you know, it seems very plausible given your, you know, long experience history with OpenStack and, and very large environments working with your customers there too, that, uh, you'll be able to do much the same with figuring out how to apply that to the Sunbeam environment, bring some advantages to a whole range of sizes of implementation.

So keep us in the loop, let us know how things are going, love to have you back and talk some more about it. Absolutely. And at the same time, uh, we would like to encourage everyone to provide their feedback, uh, with us.

Uh, 'cause this is really important. We wanna make it a community project, uh, where everyone has their voice and can share their concerns with us. So, uh, everyone's feedback is very much welcome.

Fantastic. Thank you, uh, Titus. We look forward to having you back from Canonical.

Thank you very much, Mitch. Uh, thanks again for inviting me.