Hi Greg, How is this different than the "Monitor" (non-Admin) section of Conductor?
Thanks, Andy On Oct 24, 2012, at 1:21 PM, Greg Blomquist wrote: > What is Winged Monkey? > > The idea for Winged Monkey started as a simple end user cloud access portal. > We are trying our best to stick to this idea. But, it requires a certain set > of consistent key ideas: > > * Winged Monkey is geared towards users and not administrators > * Winged Monkey should provide simple usable access to cloud back ends > * Winged Monkey cannot do anything that a back end provider cannot do > > In the end, we want it to be an attractive, simple, and intuitive user > interface that makes the resources of multiple underlying cloud providers > accessible to non-technical users who are focused on achieving their goals > rather than on attempting to understand the "cloud". > > > Why Winged Monkey? > > Originally, the name started as joke. But, like all project names, we > rationalized the name to fit the project. The monkey only knows how to do > simple things. If you teach the monkey, it can eventually learn to do more > complex things. It's still just a monkey, though, and will never be the > smartest primate in the room. It's one advantage is that it has wings, so it > can play in the clouds. > > > Monkey Goals > > The primary focus is to make a simple user interface for cloud resource > consumption. The simplest interface we think we can provide is one where a > user can start/stop VMs and launch pre-existing applications. > > The simplest ideas are sometimes the hardest to implement. For instance, how > do we provide the ability to start/stop VMs against various back ends while > trying to shield the user from having to configure the access to those back > ends? Clearly there needs to be an administrative component. We're just > doing our best not to worry too much about the administrative side at this > point. The fact is that there are several other applications that handle > cross cloud administration. Eventually, we'll likely just tie into one of > those systems to off load the administrative > portions. > > If it turns out we need to implement something that's already implemented by > another application, we'll grudgingly do it. But, we're gonna exhaust every > potential integration point, first. > > > A Winged Monkey is not a ... > > ... Conductor. Winged Monkey will avoid providing any type of cloud account > multiplexing directly. It will avoid cloud management interfaces. It will > not build or push images to back end providers. And, it will not implement > quota and cost management. > > Instead, it's more likely that Winged Monkey would like to plug into Conductor > APIs to take advantage of these features. > > ... Deltacloud. Winged Monkey is an end-user application, and not intended to > be an API. > > If Winged Monkey takes advantage of Conductor's API for account multiplexing > and cloud cost/quota, it will in turn be using the Deltacloud API to connect > to cloud back ends. > > ... Heat API. Winged Monkey will not have a concept of stack templates or > managing the high availability of applications running in the cloud. > > Winged Monkey will rely on APIs like Heat to provide stack (or application) > deployments and health monitoring. > > ... Foreman. Winged Monkey will not present puppet classes or manifests for > configuration management. It will not contain administration for networking > configuration of hosts or guests. > > Winged Monkey could use the Foreman API to launch systems that connect to a > puppetmaster for configuration management. > > > Progress so far > > Everything we've done so far has been in the vein of brainstorming. > > Jeremy Perry has put together some excellent wireframes[1] that nicely convey > the theme of simple user interface for consuming cloud resources. > > We threw together some high level user stories[2] that try to capture what we > would want this thing to do. > > And, I've started an extremely simple rails app[3] that attempts to meet > Jeremy's wireframes. The current goal of the rails app is to connect directly > to oVirt and show what pieces of the proposed user interface can actually be > provided. > > > Milestones > > We're still working on these. > > > Call for help > > We are in need of people who want to explore this idea further. We're looking > for people who: > > * are good at visual design and user experience > * have interesting ideas about servicing end users of cloud resources > * dream in ruby/rails > > Initially, we want the team to stay small. There's not a lot of work to divvy > out right now, so there's not a immediate need for a bunch of helping hands. > > But, we also want feedback. If you think we're heading down the wrong path, > speak up! If you have ideas about how to make this idea work, speak up! If > you just wanna find out why we would do this, speak up! > > > [1]: https://github.com/wingedmonkey/documents > [2]: https://github.com/wingedmonkey/documents/wiki/Winged-Monkey-User-Stories > [3]: https://github.com/wingedmonkey/wingedmonkey > > --- > Greg
