[Oneiric-Topic] Split Server and Cloud

[Clint Byrum]

On Wed, 2011-03-30 at 01:10 -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> There does not seem to be a lot of overlap between people interested in 
> working on traditional server systems and cloud systems.  There is also not a 
> lot of overlap in the package selection.
> 
> It would clear up confusion if Server were separate from Cloud.  Cloud is more 
> of an alternate platform than and end of itself.
> 


There are really two things that "cloud" can mean.

There is cloud host, and cloud guest.

In main, I don't see anything that is cloud guest specific beyond
cloud-init (which, it turns out, is useful on servers too as we can use
it with a provisioning system to pre-configure a system beyond what
preseeding can do). There is far more that is server only because bits
of infrastructure are abstracted away for cloud guests.

For creating a Cloud Host, there is Eucalyptus. Presumably, Openstack
would like to be in main and on equal footing with Eucalyptus as well.

Other than these two, what would warrant a separate product? What about
these two compromises the server product, other than CD space? Also
these are really just services that run on a server (albeit, very heavy
ones), so all the other great stuff in server is highly complimentary to
them.

I do think its worthwhile to think about having a DVD/USB image with the
cloud hosting options, and then the CD can have more critical stuff on
it that focuses on installing the server OS and integrating it into a
network.

This is one reason we've been putting time into the Ubuntu Orchestra
idea, which is meant to help people deploy Ubuntu on a network,
presumably without putting CDs or DVDs in individual servers and camping
out by the keyboard/monitor. The workflow there is to simply download
the iso to your cobbler server, import it, and then do your installs
over the network. If that works really well, I could see it being even
easier to justify having a DVD iso for those users who want to deploy a
private cloud, and then the smaller CD which just helps you get a simple
server, or Orchestra going.