Enhanced Platform Awareness – OVF Meta-Data Import in Glance

Registered by Adrian Hoban

This proposal focuses on how meta-data contained in the OVF package can be imported automatically by Glance. At the VM deployment phase, Nova, via the Image Properties Filter, can leverage the meta-data imported by Glance to filter the available platforms to a subset of platforms that are most suitable for deploying the VM image on. One use case relates to automatic provisioning of VMs for Network Function Virtualization applications that may require Enhanced Platform Awareness and more fine-grained provisioning of platform resources in order to meet performance criteria. The DMTF CIM models are referenced as examples of meta-data that may be imported.

Blueprint information

Status:
Not started
Approver:
Mark Washenberger
Priority:
Undefined
Drafter:
Adrian Hoban
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
None
Definition:
New
Series goal:
None
Implementation:
Unknown
Milestone target:
None

Related branches

Sprints

Whiteboard

Sorry for the delay in processing this proposal. The idea is something we've considered for some time, more generally it can be applied to a variety of image formats that contain data we could introspect.

I think this blueprint probably fits in best coming after we have some general mechanism such as the one suggested by https://blueprints.launchpad.net/glance/+spec/introspection-of-images . Do you buy into that approach

I do have some reservations about ovf, however. Mostly, ovf/ova is a very flexible format but at the moment we are looking for ways to tighten up our abstraction around images. So the problem is, how do we ensure that ovf/ovas only describe a single disk-image rather than something more complex? I think there is probably a way around this concern, as long as we do the introspection of ovfs during the image import task (https://blueprints.launchpad.net/glance/+spec/new-upload-workflow).

markwash more-info 2014-02-17

Hi Adrian Hoban -- Please look at bp: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/glance/+spec/metadata-artifact-repository
What do you think of storing the OVF descriptor and disks associated as an artifact in Glance and let the consumer decide what to do with it?
--arnaud

Hi: I see this blueprint as a duplicate of export-import-image-metadata-ovf
The OVF use case will will be handled by this blueprint:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/glance/+spec/artifact-repository-api
Based on the VMware driver use case in Nova, it makes more sense to actually store the OVF descriptor instead of parsing properties.
At this moment, please store your OVF+disks as an OVA tarball.
-arnaud

Let's see how the artifacts API develops, it will probably cover your use case.
rosmaita rejected 2014-03-07

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Hi,

Thank you for the input.

After reading all of the great work referenced above, I still think it will be very beneficial for OpenStack if Glance supports parsing image meta-data.
However, I do not consider this functionality to be mutually exclusive with the proposal of storing the OVF descriptors/disk in the artifact repository. For the use cases that need to get access to and process aspects of the entire OVF package then this is very useful.
The benefits of parsing some of the meta-data in Glance is that it will enable ease of adoption for use cases such as the ones referenced in this blueprint and will not require image container format processing capabilities to proliferate the system.

Re the implementation questions:
I think aligning with the https://blueprints.launchpad.net/glance/+spec/introspection-of-images blueprint looks like a good idea, as does performing the parsing during the image import task.
If it is required that only parsing of OVF meta-data for OVF/OVAs with a single-disk image is supported, then I think that can be achieved by restricting meta-data parsing based on the VirtualSystemCollection and VirtualSystem elements.
The export-import-image-metadata-ovf blueprint seems to be aligned with this one.

Adrian Hoban (2014-03-09)
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Old wiki link: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Enhanced-Platform-Awareness-OVF-Meta-Data-Import
New Gerrit Review link: https://review.openstack.org/#/c/104904/

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Work Items