21:00:34 <oneswig> #startmeeting scientific-sig
21:00:35 <openstack> Meeting started Tue Nov 10 21:00:34 2020 UTC and is due to finish in 60 minutes.  The chair is oneswig. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
21:00:36 <openstack> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #help #info #idea #link #topic #startvote.
21:00:38 <openstack> The meeting name has been set to 'scientific_sig'
21:00:51 <oneswig> hello
21:00:54 <oneswig> o/
21:02:30 <julianp> Hello.
21:02:47 <oneswig> Hi julianp, how's things?  Ready for tomorrow?
21:02:52 <oneswig> is it pre-recorded?
21:02:56 <martial> Hello Julian and others :)
21:03:02 <oneswig> Hi martial
21:03:07 <oneswig> #chair martial
21:03:08 <openstack> Current chairs: martial oneswig
21:03:25 <julianp> Heh. Things are well. Yes, mostly ready for tomorrow. And no, it's not pre-recorded. Will be sacrificing something to the demo gods tonight.
21:04:09 <oneswig> Is that normal for SC?!
21:04:25 <julianp> I have no idea if it's normal or not.
21:04:29 <oneswig> For the Open Infra summit pretty much everything was pre-recorded.
21:04:39 <oneswig> How long is the talk for?
21:04:52 <julianp> 15 minutes, 5 minutes for questions.
21:05:03 <julianp> (So 20 minutes total)
21:05:29 <oneswig> Fingers crossed there will be some good questions.  Is it an overview on Exosphere or covering some specific details?
21:06:05 <oneswig> brb
21:06:56 <oneswig> sorry, back
21:07:05 <oneswig> tell us more julianp
21:07:32 <julianp> It will be a general overview, reasons behind architecture, demo, future plans.
21:08:50 <julianp> We'll hint at things like GPU-enabled remote graphical desktops.
21:08:55 <janders> g'day Scientific-SIG o/
21:09:00 <oneswig> I don't know Exosphere, how does it relate to Atmosphere etc?
21:09:01 <janders> (sorry for being late)
21:09:09 <oneswig> Hi janders, how's things?
21:09:16 <martial> that sounds fun (remote GPUs)
21:09:41 <julianp> cmart and I both used to work on Atmosphere.
21:10:02 <janders> oneswig things are good, thank you for asking. How's everyone?
21:11:18 <julianp> Atmosphere makes it really easy to launch virtual machines for researchers without having to deal with networks, firewalls, SSH keys, etc. Exosphere aims to do the same, but radically simpler in architecture.
21:11:21 <b1airo> hey gang
21:11:34 <oneswig> Hi b1airo, morning
21:11:36 <oneswig> #chair b1airo
21:11:37 <openstack> Current chairs: b1airo martial oneswig
21:12:04 <julianp> Hi b1airo. Actually b1airo has kicked the tires. We'll have one of his clouds in the demo tomorrow.
21:12:07 <b1airo> i'm *very* distracted - we have a virtual all team retreat on today and we're in the thick of starting an un0conference
21:12:11 <oneswig> julianp: how many remote desktops can you run off one physical GPU?
21:12:26 <oneswig> julianp: b1airo: cool!
21:12:33 <b1airo> sounds great julianp !
21:12:48 <julianp> Number of rmeote desktops: Depends on your NVIDIA license. XD
21:13:12 <oneswig> b1airo: teambuilding, pay attention :-)
21:13:19 <b1airo> :-)
21:13:36 <julianp> Exosphere also doesn't require any integration effort. It's a drop-in replacement for something like the OpenStack CLI tools. You just need OpenStack credentials.
21:14:10 <julianp> Runs as a standalone client in browser or desktop app. Can have multiple OpenStack providers/projects in the same 'pane of glass'.
21:14:48 <julianp> We provide a nice terminal experience in the browser to get going quickly (no SSH required).
21:15:33 <oneswig> Similar to what Open OnDemand does for Slurm?
21:15:36 <julianp> Exactly.
21:16:08 <julianp> You can kick the tires yourself: try.exosphere.app
21:16:17 <julianp> Paste an openrc file and go.
21:17:03 <julianp> Source and background: https://gitlab.com/exosphere/exosphere
21:18:15 <b1airo> i will vouch for julianp - he hasn't tried to steal my cloud credentials yet :-P
21:18:28 <julianp> XD Thanks b1airo!
21:19:24 <julianp> Yeah, we don't store OpenStack credentials on the client. We generate an application credential and then forget the password. It never leaves the client, other than the first request to Keystone.
21:20:01 <julianp> And we don't have services which you have to trust. We don't want/need that kind of hassle. Can't compromise credentials if we never see them!
21:21:01 <julianp> This model seems interesting to some folks at US national laboratories who run high-security workloads.
21:22:42 <julianp> We also use Elm as the main programming language. It compiles to static HTML and JavaScript. Think of it as Haskell for interactive web applications.
21:23:53 <julianp> Pure functions and statically typed compiled language. It helps us keep the bugs down, and make codebase easier to maintain. We did not feel like maintaining a large JavaScript project is a good way of spending our remaining days on earth.
21:25:26 <julianp> Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions: https://gitter.im/exosphere-app/community
21:27:21 <b1airo> i'm definitely keen to give it another try - see if i can find some more bugs for you ;-)
21:28:19 <julianp> Heh. Thanks b1airo. We'd love that. It was very useful the last time.
21:28:54 <b1airo> by the way julianp , i assume you're using Nectar in your demo seeing as i prompted it with my kicking of the tyres, but do you have any contacts there you can leverage? i can put you in touch with some folks who would probably be interested in pointing users at Exosphere
21:29:24 <julianp> We don't have any contacts at Nectar other than you. That would be great! Thank you.
21:30:09 <julianp> We'll be working on white-labeling and a self-service theming/customization tools for cloud providers in the near future.
21:30:38 <b1airo> sure, ping me in Slack if you don't see an email come through soon (things may fall off the stack with the level of multi-tasking going on in my brain)
21:30:41 <julianp> No re-compile necessary to change logos, colors, etc.
21:31:03 <julianp> Thanks b1airo. I'll keep an eye on email, and make a note to ping you next week.
21:32:04 <oneswig> Nice to see the demo site
21:37:42 <julianp> Thanks oneswig. We're engineers and have focused on making things work fast and reliably. We don't have a decent landing-page and we have work to do on the UX.
21:41:21 <oneswig> SC doesn't appear to have compromised much on ticket price despite being virtual.
21:45:59 <julianp> oneswig do you still collaborate with with Paul Calleja?
21:46:39 <oneswig> Yes - quite a lot.  We have a number of projects underway with Cambridge University.
21:47:20 <oneswig> I recall he was interested in Atmosphere a while back and assume he'd like this too
21:47:30 <julianp> Yeah, I sat next to Paul at a BBQ dinner at OpenStack Summit in Austin in 2016. He loved the Jetstream UI. I've been meaning to catch up with him.
21:48:27 <oneswig> I've been meaning to catch up with barbecue
21:49:10 <julianp> We're heavily inspired by Atmosphere. We wanted Atmosphere to succeed, but it was too much of a lift for cloud providers to maintain. So we're aiming for zero-maintenance with Exosphere.
21:49:51 <oneswig> How do you approach issues with portability between clouds?
21:50:21 <julianp> Do you mean OpenStack API compatibility? Or do you mean migrating workloads between clouds?
21:51:18 <oneswig> Principally the compatibility of a single cloud - how to achieve a simple and consistent result
21:52:02 <julianp> Most recent (Queens or later) OpenStack clouds 'just work'. We don't aim to replace all the functionality of Horizon, and we use a very narrow subset of the OpenStack API.
21:53:09 <julianp> We're working on a continuous integration suite to run against all the OpenStack clouds which we can lay our hands on.
21:53:30 <oneswig> Does it work with bare metal?
21:54:01 <julianp> Bare metal: We haven't tried yet. I will be applying for a Chameleon allocation to try it out.
21:54:36 <oneswig> Be interesting to know how it goes.
21:54:58 <julianp> Will let you know. We're working closely with Jetstream folks - Jetstream 2 will have bare metal nodes, so it's on the road map.
21:55:20 <julianp> If anybody has bare metal they'd like us to help test, send us a message.
21:57:03 <oneswig> I might have just the thing... in a few weeks.  We have a project with Verne Global for a bare metal cluster available for "open source public good" projects
21:57:33 <martial> btw, is there a link for people to join this presentation?
21:57:46 <oneswig> julianp: will let you know when it's ready to try :-)
21:58:02 <julianp> "open source public good" projects eh? That's us. Thanks oneswig!
21:58:14 <oneswig> You're welcome! :-)
21:58:29 <oneswig> Nearly time folks, anything else to cover?
21:58:41 <julianp> martial: I don't know about public links, but I suspect it'll be recorded.
21:58:52 <martial> thanks
22:00:29 <oneswig> Ok, thanks all and good luck for the SC presentation julianp
22:00:34 <oneswig> #endmeeting