On Fri, Apr 24, 2020, at 00:01, Kowshik Prakasam wrote:
> (Kowshik): Great point! However for case #1, I'm not sure why we need to
> create a '/features' ZK node with disabled features. Instead, do you see
> any drawback if we just do not create it? i.e. if IBP is less than 2.6, the
> controller treats the case as though the versioning system is completely
> disabled, and would not create a non-existing '/features' node.

Hi Kowshik,

When the IBP is less than 2.6, but the software has been upgraded to a state 
where it supports this KIP, that 
 means the user is upgrading from an earlier version of the software.  In this 
case, we want to start with all the features disabled and allow the user to 
enable them when they are ready.

Enabling all the possible features immediately after an upgrade could be 
harmful to the cluster.  On the other hand, for a new cluster, we do want to 
enable all the possible features immediately . I was proposing this as a way to 
distinguish the two cases (since the new cluster will never be started with an 
old IBP).

> Colin MccCabe wrote:
> > And now, something a little bit bigger (sorry).  For finalized features,
> > why do we need both min_version_level and max_version_level?  Assuming that
> > we want all the brokers to be on the same feature version level, we really 
> > only care
> > about three numbers for each feature, right?  The minimum supported version
> > level, the maximum supported version level, and the current active version 
> > level.
> 
> > We don't actually want different brokers to be on different versions of
> > the same feature, right?  So we can just have one number for current
> > version level, rather than two.  At least that's what I was thinking -- let
> > me know if I missed something.
> 
> (Kowshik): It is my understanding that the "current active version level"
> that you have mentioned, is the "max_version_level". But we still
> maintain/publish both min and max version levels, because, the detail about
> min level is useful to external clients. This is described below.
> 
> For any feature F, think of the closed range: [min_version_level,
> max_version_level] as the range of finalized versions, that's guaranteed to
> be supported by all brokers in the cluster.
>  - "max_version_level" is the finalized highest common version among all
> brokers,
>  - "min_version_level" is the finalized lowest common version among all
> brokers.
> 
> Next, think of "client" here as the "user of the new feature versions
> system". Imagine that such a client learns about finalized feature
> versions, and exercises some logic based on the version. These clients can
> be of 2 types:
> 1. Some part of the broker code itself could behave like a client trying to
> use some feature that's "internal" to the broker cluster. Such a client
> would learn the latest finalized features via ZK.
> 2. An external system (ex: Streams) could behave like a client, trying to
> use some "external" facing feature. Such a client would learn latest
> finalized features via ApiVersionsRequest. Ex: group_coordinator feature
> described in the KIP.
> 
> Next, imagine that for F, the max_version_level is successfully bumped by
> +1 (via Controller API). Now it is guaranteed that all brokers (i.e.
> internal clients) understand max_version_level + 1. However, it is still
> not guaranteed that all external clients have support for (or have
> activated) the logic for the newer version. Why? Because, this is
> subjective as explained next:
> 
> 1. On one hand, imagine F as an internal feature only relevant to Brokers.
> The binary for the internal client logic is controlled by Broker cluster
> deployments. When shipping a new Broker release, we wouldn't bump max
> "supported" feature version for F by 1, unless we have introduced some new
> logic (with a potentially breaking change) in the Broker. Furthermore, such
> feature logic in the broker should/will not be implemented in a way that it
> would activate logic for an older feature version after it has migrated to
> using the logic for a newer feature version (because this could break the
> cluster!). For these cases, max_version_level will be very useful for
> decision making.
> 
> 2. On the other hand, imagine F as an external facing feature. External
> clients are not within the control of Broker cluster. An external client
> may not have upgraded it's code (yet) to use 'max_version_level + 1'. But,
> the Kafka cluster could have been deployed with support for
> 'max_version_level + 1' of an external facing feature. Now, these external
> clients (until an upgrade) are benefitted in learning "what is the lowest
> common version for F among all brokers?". This is where the
> "min_version_level" becomes useful. Using this, a client could learn the
> specific supported versions that's lower than max_version_level (instead of
> assuming that all brokers support the range: [1, max_version_level]). For
> example, if the cluster deprecates "min_version_level", then the client
> becomes aware because it periodically learns the latest "min_version_level"
> via ApiVersionsRequest.
> 

Thanks for the explanation.  I agree that this does make sense when you take 
the client perspective into account.

best,
Colin


> 
> Cheers,
> Kowshik
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 12:07 PM Colin McCabe <cmcc...@apache.org> wrote:
> 
> > Hi Kowshik,
> >
> > Thanks again for working on this-- it looks great.  I went over the KIP
> > again and have a few more comments.
> >
> > ===
> >
> > It would be good to note that deprecating a feature version (in other
> > words, increasing minVersionLevel on the broker) is an incompatible change,
> > which requires a major release of Kafka.
> >
> > ===
> >
> > I think the strategy for transitioning from not having a /features znode
> > to having one could use some work. The current proposal is to wait for all
> > the brokers to fill in their feature znodes and then pick the highest
> > common versions.  But that requires blocking in the controller startup code
> > until the whole cluster is active (technically, a point in time which we
> > never really know that we have reached...)
> >
> > Instead, I think it would be better to have a strategy like this:
> > 1. If the controller comes up and there is no /features znode AND the IBP
> > is less than 2.6, create a /features znode where all the features are
> > disabled.
> > 2. If the controller comes up and there is no /features znode AND the IBP
> > is greater than or equal to 2.6, create a /features znode where all the
> > features are enabled at the highest versions supported by the controller.
> >
> > People upgrading from the pre-KIP-584
> > <https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KIP-584> world will end up in case
> > #1 because they have to do a double roll to upgrade, and during the first
> > roll, the IBP is unchanged.  People creating new clusters from scratch will
> > end up in case #2, which is what we want since we don't want a brand new
> > cluster to be using old feature flag versions.
> >
> > ===
> >
> > UpdateFeaturesResponse#ErrorMessage should specify nullableVersions since
> > null is a valid value here
> >
> > Also, in the message format, the tags we use need to start at 0.
> >
> > ===
> >
> > I don't think we need the FEATURE_UPDATE_IN_PROGRESS error code.  The
> > controller is basically single-threaded and will only do one of these
> > operations at once.  Even if it weren't, though, we could simply block the
> > second operation behind the first one.
> >
> > ===
> >
> > For updateFeatures, it would be good to specify that if a single feature
> > version update in the batch can't be done, none of them are done.  I think
> > this was the intention, but I wasn't able to find it spelled out (maybe i
> > missed it).
> >
> > ===
> >
> > And now, something a little bit bigger (sorry).  For finalized features,
> > why do we need both min_version_level and max_version_level?  Assuming that
> > we want all the brokers to be on the same feature version level, we really
> > only care about three numbers for each feature, right?  The minimum
> > supported version level, the maximum supported version level, and the
> > current active version level.
> >
> > We don't actually want different brokers to be on different versions of
> > the same feature, right?  So we can just have one number for current
> > version level, rather than two.  At least that's what I was thinking -- let
> > me know if I missed something.
> >
> > best,
> > Colin
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 21, 2020, at 13:01, Dhruvil Shah wrote:
> > > Thanks for the KIP! +1 (non-binding)
> > >
> > > On Tue, Apr 21, 2020 at 6:09 AM David Jacot <dja...@confluent.io> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Great KIP, thanks! +1 (non-binding)
> > > >
> > > > On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 8:56 PM Guozhang Wang <wangg...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Thanks for the great KIP Kowshik, +1 (binding).
> > > > >
> > > > > On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 11:22 AM Jun Rao <j...@confluent.io> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Hi, Kowshik,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Thanks for the KIP. +1
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Jun
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On Thu, Apr 16, 2020 at 11:14 AM Kowshik Prakasam <
> > > > > kpraka...@confluent.io>
> > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > Hi all,
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > I'd like to start a vote for KIP-584
> > <https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KIP-584>. The link to the KIP can
> > be
> > > > found
> > > > > > > here:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/KIP-584%3A+Versioning+scheme+for+features
> > > > > > > .
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Thanks!
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Cheers,
> > > > > > > Kowshik
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > > -- Guozhang
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
>

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