Dmitri Zimine's slides on Design Summit at OpenStack Barcelona 2016. Talked about the history of two projects, technical differences, discussed an overlap and drafted a path forward. https://www.openstack.org/summit/barcelona-2016/summit-schedule/events/16999/mistral-mistral-and-stackstorm

1. Mistral and StackStorm
© 2016 BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC.

2. Barnaul, Russia
Portland, Apr 2013
Hong Kong, Nov 2013Palo Alto, Jan 2014

3. StackStorm: Mistral’s before and after
© 2016 BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC. 3
What’s next task?
Which action?
Data input/output
Before After
AUTOMATION PRODUCT
WORKFLOW
SERVICE
What triggers
workflow?
Input data?
Run action.
Take input.
Return output.

4. StackStorm contributed from the beginning
4MISTRAL-ALL, ALL TIME (ALL PROJECTS)
Lines of code Reviews
1. Directions
2. Code

5. • Event-driven automation product
• License: Apache 2.0
• Python, 80% OpenStack “stack”
• Controlled by: Brocade
• Dev workflow: Github flow
5
StackStorm Mistral
• Workflow Service
• License: Apache 2.0
• Python, 100% OpenStack “stack”
• Controlled by: OpenStack foundation
• Dev workflow: OpenStack Gerrit

6. StackStorm
6
IT Domains
Config mgmtStorageNetworking ContainersCloud InfraMonitoring
ActionsSensors
WorkflowsRules
Ops Support
MISTRAL

7. Automation Example
7
Automation
EngineerService
Monitoring Incident
Management
Event: “low disk
on web301”
Web301 is
“low disk”
Resolve known cases,
fast. Is it
/var/log?
Clean up!
Unknown
problem, need a
human
Wake up, buddy.
Something real
is going on…

8. What is Mistral?
8
Mistral is an OpenStack Service that
manages workflows
OpenStack summit Austin 2016 Video: https://youtu.be/rVAoc4fNkxI

9. Why yet another workflow service?
1. NO Java
– Ops friendly language (e.g. Python)
2. NO WYSWYG
– Infrastructure as code
3. NO BPEL
– Need a good workflow definition language!
• TOSCA: “Instead of providing another language for defining process models, the specification
relies on existing languages like BPMN or BPEL.”
4. NO Legacy architecture
– Horizontally scalable, highly available, micro-services, REST API
© 2016 BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC. 9

10. No JAVA: ops friendly stack
© 2016 BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC. 10

11. No WYCWYG
11

12. No BPEL: need good workflow language
© 2016 BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC. 12
TOSCA: “Instead of providing another language for defining process
models, the specification relies on existing languages like BPMN or
BPEL.”

13. NO Legacy architecture:
Horizontally scalable, highly available, micro-services, REST API
© 2016 BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC. 13

14. StackStorm & Mistral: overlap
© 2016 BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC. 14
What’s next task?
Which action?
Data input/output
Before After
AUTOMATION PRODUCT
WORKFLOW
SERVICE
What triggers
workflow?
Input data?
Run action.
Take input.
Return output.

15. Mistal raw or StackStorm?
© 2016 BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC. 15

16. Usage
16
Mistral (deep) StackStorm (broad)
Users OpenStack community, TELCO DevOps, Security, Networking
Use Cases NVF, OpenStack automation, use by
OpenStack projects
CI/CD, operation automation,
security, networking, ChatOps,
Usage (estimated) ??? installations
Estimated: ~200 users
IRC chatter: ~3,000 msg/month
~2,000 installations/months
Estimated: ~1000 users
Slack chatter: ~5,000 msg/month
Super-users Nokia, Ericson, TripleO, Intel, IBM Fujitsu, Target, Cisco, Verizon,
Pearson, Pulsant, CollabNet,
DimentionData, Symantec, Netflix…

17. Case study: Cisco IT
• Use case:
– automate self-service provisioning
– Transformation:
– traditional IT -> DevOps
– Legacy Runbook automation -> DevOps-friendly workflow product
• Wanted Mistral (watched for 1 year!)
• Using StackStorm
– Was Mistral not enough? Why?
© 2016 BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC. 17

18. Case study: Nokia
• Use case:
– NFV
– Complex application provisioning workflows on OpenStack
• Using Mistral “raw”
– Happy with OpenStack + custom static Python actions (less dynamic env)
© 2016 BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC. 18

19. Actions: Overlap?
19
Mistral StackStorm
Python actions ✓ ✓
Extensible ✓ (stevedore) ✓ (dynamic)
Dynamic load ✗ ✓
Python lib isolation ✗ ✓
Polygloting ✗ ✓ (runners)
Call directly ✗ ✓ (API, CLI, UI)
OpenStack actions ✓ (*) ✓ (*)
“Pack” model ✗ ✓
Community “hub” ✗ ✓

20. Community integrations
Over 2,000 actions (github/st2contrib)

21. StackStorm & Mistral: overlap
© 2016 BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC. 21
What’s next task?
Which action?
Data input/output
Before After
AUTOMATION PRODUCT
WORKFLOW
SERVICE
What triggers
workflow?
Input data?
Run action.
Take input.
Return output.

22. StackStorm & Mistral: overlap
• Users confused: when use one, when another
• Contributors confused: offering functionality that breaks architectural
“purity”
© 2016 BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC. 22

23. Mistral & StackStorm: path forward (draft)
• Keep Mistral workflow service “clean”
• Separate “action” framework and
• Make Python actions compatible
• Recommend StackStorm for event-driven, and advanced actions
Details – Mistral contributor’s session tomorrow, Fri Oct 27
23

24. DISCUSSION
24