The document discusses high availability (HA) in Apache CloudStack, focusing on challenges and solutions related to managing KVM host HA and NFS storage issues. It outlines the need for a robust infrastructure control plane to ensure operational correctness and details the functionality of HA resource management services. The implementation is in progress, with plans for a first version delivery in July 2016.

1. The Cloud
Specialists
When the Cloud is a Rockin': High
Availability in Apache CloudStack
shapeblue.com • @ShapeBlue
John Burwell • @john_burwell
VP of Software Engineering

2. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
A b o u t M e
• VP of Software Engineering @ ShapeBlue
• Member, Apache CloudStack PMC (June
2013)
• Ran operations and designed automated
provisioning for analytic/virtualization clouds
• Led architectural design and server-side
development of a SaaS physical security
platform

3. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
• Rohit Yadav
• Abhi Prateek
• Murali Reddy
• Boris Stoyanov
T h e r e ’ s N o “ I ” i n T e a m

4. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
M o t i v a t i o n
Currently [sic] KVM HA works by monitoring an NFS
based heartbeat file and it can often fail whenever
this network share becomes slower, causing the
hypervisors to reboot. … This is embarrassing. How
can we fix it? Ideas, suggestions? How are other
hypervisors doing it?
- Nux
15 October 2015
CLOUDSTACK-8943

5. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
• Limited to hosts and VMs using NFS storage
• Tight coupling between the Agent and
HighAvailabilityManager
• False positives which interrupt the operation
healthy resources
L i m i t a t i o n s / I s s u e s
Inconsistent behavior prevents operators from trusting KVM HA

6. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
B u i l d v s . B u y
Pros
• Integration with the
CloudStack control plane and
abstractions
• Simpler configuration
• Integrated instrumentation
and logging
Cons
• Complex mechanism to
implement, test, and
maintain
• Foregoing a proven, battle
tested implementation
• Less functionality initially
A robust infrastructure control plane must include the ability to
recover and fence resources

7. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
H A R e s o u r c e M a n a g e m e n t S e r v i c e
HA Resource
Management Service
Plugin
•Manages per resource FSM
•Persistence
•Concurrency/Back Pressure
•Common Business Logic
•Resource-specific Business Logic
HA Provider
Resource

8. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
• Loose coupling between resources and HA
• Consolidate orthogonal HA concerns
• Prove the correct operation of the HA Resource
Management Service and HA Providers
independently
• Leverage CloudStack abstractions
• Develop a model for architectural evolution
G o a l s
To create a trustworthy system, operational
correctness must be the prevailing priority

9. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
• Health Check: An idempotent check of a resource to
directly verify its proper operation
• Activity Check: An idempotent check to observe the
side-effects of a resource’s proper operation
• Eligibility: An idempotent determination of a
resource’s eligibility for HA management
• Recovery: Take potentially destructive actions to
bring a resource back to a healthy state
• Fence: Take potentially destructive actions to
prevent an unrecoverable resource from impacting
the health of its peers
T e r m s a n d C o n c e p t s

10. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
• DISABLED: The resource is part of a partition where HA operations have been disabled
or have been disabled for the resource.
• INITIALIZING: The initial health and eligibility of the resource for HA management is
currently being determined.
• AVAILABLE: The resource is available based on the passage of the most recent health
check and it containing partition has an HA state of ACTIVE.
• INELIGIBLE: The resource's enclosing partition has an HA state of ACTIVE but its
current state does not support HA check and/or recovery operations.
• SUSPECT: The resource pending an activity check due to failing its most recent health
check.
• CHECKING: An activity check is currently being performed on the resource.
• RECOVERING: Recovery operations are in-progress to bring the resource back to a
healthy state.
• DEGRADED: The resource cannot be managed by the control plane but passed its most
recent activity check indicating that the resource is still servicing end-user requests
• FENCED: The resource is not operating normally and automated attempts to recover it
failed. Manual operator intervention is required to recover the resource.
S t a t e s

11. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
S t a t e M o d e l

12. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
H A P r o v i d e r I n t e r f a c e
public interface HAProvider<R> extends Adapter {
ResourceType resourceType();
ResourceSubType resourceSubType();
boolean isEligible(R r);
boolean isHealthy(R r) throws HACheckerException;
boolean hasActivity(R r) throws HACheckerException;
boolean recover(R r) throws HARecoveryException;
boolean fence(R r) throws HAFenceException;
}

13. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
K V M H o s t H A
KVM Host HA Provider
Storage
Processor
Activity
Check
Host
Recover /
Fence using
OOBM
KVM Agent
Health
Check

14. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
C o n c u r r e n c y M o d e l
•Producer/consumer model
•Size bounded work queues
•Time bounded operations
•Fixed sized thread pools
•Idempotent operations are ephemeral
•Non-Idempotent operations are managed
through AsyncJobManager using a new time-
delayed dispatcher
HA operations cannot overwhelm the control plane

15. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
• Focused on KVM host HA
• Initial implementation started — validating the
design
• Draft specification — functional spec will be
published in the next 1-2 weeks
• Robust unit and integration test model to verify
both the service and KVM host HA provider
• Delivery of the first version in July 2016 for
inclusion in 4.10 (August 2016)
S t a t u s

16. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
• Support Nested HA Resources
• Instrumentation
• Migrate VM HA to the HA Resource Management
Service
W h a t ’ s N e x t

17. C l i c k t o e d i t
The Cloud Specialists ShapeBlue.com @ShapeBlue
Questions? Comments?
#cloudstackworks