TC Nomination - Rocky Cycle

Hi,

I am submitting my candidacy for the OpenStack Technical Committee.

I have been contributing to OpenStack since the Havana cycle [1] [2], mainly in Designate. I have also been involved with the TC, and its meetings since Designate applied for incubation all the way back in Atlanta (the first time we were there).

Over the last 6 months I have become more involved in the TC, and have been an active contributor to TC discussions (both on IRC and in person) and governance [3].

I have been PTL for Designate for Mitaka, Newton, Ocata, Queens and Rocky cycles, and a core for a longer period. I believe my experience working in a younger, smaller project within OpenStack is a benefit. Along with the experience of working on software as an end user of OpenStack I can help us ensure the Technical Committee is mindful of the unique challenges these projects and users can face.

With the broadening of the scope of the OpenStack Foundation, I believe that it is an important part of the TC's role to have robust, and frank discussions with the Board of Directors and I believe that I have done a reasonable job of summarizing [4] [5] what happens at the Board of Directors meetings to the community over the last 6 months.

The need for the candid discussions is not restricted to the Foundation and the board - the new strategic focus areas that the foundation is expanding into need our technical leadership to engage with them and ensure that we are all working towards the overall goal of the foundation and promoting open infrastructure. We need to make collaborating, and sharing resources and expertise where it makes sense a priority.

What it does not mean is changing what OpenStack is nor changing OpenStack to cater for a single use case. This is a situation where better education of how OpenStack and its components can be used and orchestrated is needed, and a lot of this work should be directed by the TC. I don't think the TC will always (or even most of the time) be the correct people to engage, but I think we should lead the way by finding the correct people with the knowledge and experience, and helping support them and provide them with a platform to provide guidance to these groups.

When it comes to pushing forward the TC vision [6] I think the community has made great steps forward to realizing it, on all but one section. We engage with groups like the CNCF, and specifically Kubernetes and help drive OpenStack adoption with first class support for the OpenStack Cloud Provider, the Cinder Container Storage Interface and other projects. We still need to find a way to show the world what a top tier private open source infrastructure of components like OpenStack, Kubernetes, Cloud Foundry or OpenShift looks like, and to help companies understand why this is the way forward for their infrastructure.

Unfortunately, helping users, deployers and C(T|I)Os understand this would be easier with well written and and clearly documented "constellations" - I have always found talking in the abstract is a lot more difficult than discussing something tangible. For the last 5 years I have worked on product teams building products based on OpenStack, Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry, and I think this experience will be a great asset in developing our first generation of constellations, which is something I think we need to focus on for the next term of the TC.

I think that having constellations will also help us solve the perennial question of what OpenStack is. By having sets of projects, we can show that OpenStack is extremely flexible - and that there are projects for different use cases. Far too much time is spent circling back to the "What is OpenStack" - which I foresee getting even more complex as the OpenStack Foundation grows beyond the OpenStack Project, and having a solid, stable answer to what we are is going to be vital.

I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts - and ask you to consider me for your vote. If elected I will strive to be vocal for the community that I have gotten so much from. I want to give some more back to them ensure that the OpenStack Project continues to be the go to software for Infrastructure as a Service.

Thanks again,

• Graham