ATCA Newsletter

Interview with Mario Angelic and Jonas Arndt, Technical Co-Chairs of the OpenSAF Project

By Lance A. Leventhal, ATCA Newsletter Technical Editor

1. What are the key enhancements and new features of Release 3.0 of OpenSAF (June 2009)?

Jonas: Release 3.0 includes major enhancements to align OpenSAF closely with the latest Service Availability Forum Application Interface Specification (AIS). This includes the implementation of the Information Model Management service which provides a standard mechanism for defining and operating on managed objects. Utility services, event handling, messaging, and notification were also either implemented or upgraded, and the Availability Management Framework and Cluster Membership Service features set were upgraded. This was really a comprehensive upgrade.

Mario: Besides the alignments with SA Forum specifications, OpenSAF Release 3.0 includes Java mappings for Cluster Membership Service and the Availability Management Framework. Finally, the makefile and installation system was overhauled to conform with current best practices and enable OpenSAF to integrate easily with more systems. Overall, OpenSAF release 3.0 aligns very well with the SCOPE base platform middleware recommendations.

2. Where is OpenSAF being used and for what applications?

Jonas: OpenSAF is being used in many telecom and multimedia applications. There is also interest from the military/defense market. 

Mario: Early versions of the OpenSAF code base have logged over 100,000 hours of continuous operation. This shows underlying stability in the infrastructure.

3. What hardware platforms have developers used to test OpenSAF?

Mario:  A key advantage of an open source project is that the community can test the code base in a broad variety of ways. Generally, this provides much greater exposure and a much broader test environment than a single commercial company can achieve. Since the code is developed in an open environment, testing can start as soon as the features are released. OpenSAF is being tested on a variety of platforms and architectures such as bladed COTS platforms, rackmount servers, AdvancedTCA, and proprietary systems. A lot of testing is being done with PC clusters or in a virtualized environment.

4. Which operating systems are supported?

Jonas: OpenSAF has used Linux for most development and testing. OpenSAF contains a very flexible portability layer, called LEAP, which enables the code base to run on almost any POSIX compliant OS. Dependencies on parts of other open source projects, such as TIPC, a reliable communications protocol, may pose challenges in non-Linux environments. However, OpenSAF has been ported to Solaris, although this was not formally completed in time for release 3.0.

5. What important features will be in release 4 of OpenSAF?

Mario: Release 4.0’s key features will be the implementation of the SA Forum Software Management Framework for seamless software upgrade and rollback, and the SA Forum Platform Layer Management, which improves hardware management and facilitates virtualization. For both services, we will start with a fully usable subset in Release 4.0 and add capabilities later

6. How does someone become involved with OpenSAF?

Jonas: To become part of the OpenSAF community, all you need to do is get involved. Join the mailing lists and start to participate in the dialogue. OpenSAF is a friendly and welcoming group, so no one should be afraid of posting. That being said, the mailing lists do assume some knowledge of high availability and the code base.  One way to obtain the required background is to attend the annual Developer Days where we cover the basics of OpenSAF and discuss current and future work. This also provides a great way to meet key people in OpenSAF.

Mario: As Jonas said, getting involved is as simple as joining the mailing list. To become an active contributor, you must sign a contribution agreement. The purpose is to give OpenSAF a license to the IP and copyright. On a slightly different note, there are marketing benefits to becoming a supporter member of the OpenSAF Foundation.

7. What is the Technical Leadership Council?

Mario: The Technical Leadership Council (TLC) guides the OpenSAF projects. It facilitates architectural discussions, plans upcoming releases based on developer commitments, appoint maintainers, ensures that major contributions are implemented in-line with the OpenSAF architecture, and determines when the code base is ready for general release.

Jonas: The technical co-chairs (TCC), elected by TLC, coordinate, guide, and lead the TLC. We also organize the technical aspects of Developer Days and run the weekly TLC conference calls and the periodic face-to-face meetings. And we work with the Board of Directors of the OpenSAF Foundation to make sure that the project and the umbrella organization are synchronized and that the Foundation can support any legal, financial, or marketing requirements.

8. What is the Developer Days event?

Mario: Developer Days is an annual event that brings together people from the OpenSAF community to discuss the project and to stimulate interest in it. We have held Developer Days events in Munich in October 2008 and in Shenzhen, China in June 2009. 

9. What does the future hold for OpenSAF?

Jonas:  We expect OpenSAF to grow rapidly as it has since its inception in January 2008. We expect to see many more deployments in 2009 and 2010.

Mario:  We expect continued improvement in the build environment and test phase. With new members joining the Foundation and a steadily growing ecosystem, OpenSAF has much to offer to the high availability world as we move forward.

Mario Angelic and Jonas Arndt are Technical Co-Chairs of the OpenSAF project. Angelic is a Senior Specialist at Ericsson, and Arndt is a System Architect at HP. You can reach either of them via Henry Turko at admin@list.opensaf.org. The new version of OpenSAF can be downloaded from http://devel.opensaf.org/.