TSC Meeting (03 May 2022): self-check in GH Actions, AWS cost reduction follow-up, v3.7.0 release

[winem]

May 2022 @StackStorm/tsc 1 hour planned meeting: Tuesday, 03 May 2022, 09:30 AM US Pacific.

See #33 for more info on how to join.
(TLDR; Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81082101702?pwd=N1V4TWdYRVQ4SXBsaFh1TFYvVDA0UT09)

Meeting host: @winem

Meeting Agenda

StackStorm AWS cost-reduction project ~(5min)

• See the previous meeting for the issue description and more context: TSC Meeting (01 Feb 2022): New pack content overrides, AWS, v3.7.0 progress #97
• Project: https://github.com/orgs/StackStorm/projects/27
• Follow-up on the first batch of distributed tasks (Slack link):
  • Migrate internal monitoring server to free 3rd party service (Scalyr) (@Kami)
  • Replace paid RHEL8 to free Rocky8 e2e testing [1] [2] (@amanda11)
  • AWS Route53 cleanup, Right-size the AWS e2e and VPN instances (-$120/mo) (@armab)
  • In progress: run st2-self-check in GH Actions, instead of st2cicd e2e tests (@winem)
  • Migrate api.stackstorm.com to GH static pages (@bishopbm1)
  • Experiment with the AWS spot instances for running e2e test VMs: U16,U18,EL7,EL8 (@punkrokk)
  • Migrate docs.stackstorm.com to GH static pages #1096 (@guzzijones)

Migrating AWS parent org to Encore ~(10m)

Drop Python 3.6 / OS support matrix ~(10m)

• Python 3.8 is not available in CentOS 7 without building/distributing our own.
• Is there a way to divorce our requirements from OS platforms and focus more on supporting various python versions? (3.9, 3.10)

StackStorm v3.7.0 release preparation ~(5min)

• Release Manager: @cognifloyd, Release Assistant: @nzlosh
• Target month: May 2022?
• Project & Roadmap: https://github.com/orgs/StackStorm/projects/23
• JS Review needed on: fix bug: validation of array of objects st2web#863
• @amanda11 s blog post for the new override feature: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1boNJiuNu--Ob1xGDf5eGWxf-2yAIF70fbYFmqut91uI/edit?usp=sharing
  (- Who is going to be the release manager and assistant for v.3.8.0?)

TSC Meeting host rotation ~(5min)

• Proposal: Start with the rotation in June 2022 with one of the 3.7.0 release managers (see Rotation for the Monthly TSC Meeting Manager/Coordinator #4 (comment))

ST2 Security/Maintenance Project ~(10min)

• How well did requiring 2 PR reviews on the st2 repo go this month? Any lessons learned?
• Should we do the same for other repos?
• Pick one item from the https://github.com/orgs/StackStorm/projects/25 and discuss/triage it

[winem]

Following topics were moved to the next TSC meeting in June:

Demo: migration to Scalyr monitoring for internal st2cicd infra by @Kami ~(10min)

• See: Migrate internal monitoring to free 3rd party service st2ci#208
• Highlight the new system, dashboards, monitors, how to operate it, and use it collectively as @StackStorm/maintainers

Run st2-self-check in GH Actions ~(5min)

• current state of the PR CI should run st2-self-check for every PR st2#5496
• how to handle tests with HTTP actions - the only ones that still fail
• agree on the MVP to start with the self-check in GH Actions (older Python versions seem to be a problem, I'll provide details during the meeting)

[winem]

Meeting notes:

Attendees:
@armab @amanda11 @cognifloyd @rush-skills @winem @nzlosh

Migrating AWS parent org to Encore ~(10m)

• We'll coordinate this async to the TSC meetings
  • The credit card on the root account needs to be changed before the account will be transfered to Encore
• Given that the AWS credits expire in a few months it was discussed whether AWS is the right cloud provider for us
  • there are multiple maintainers with AWS knowledge, so there is no risk due to a lack of knowledge
  • other cloud providers like GCP and Azure were briefly evaluated in the past and we'll probably have similar challenges regarding the OSS credits

Drop Python 3.6 / OS support matrix ~(10m)

• CentOS 7 will be EOL June 2024; Py3.8 will not be available on CentOS7
• The participants agreed that we do not want to provide any kind of home grown Python-environment or solution to run a higher Python version on CentOS7
• It was also discussed to provide st2 just as Docker containers and have that as the only supported installation method
  • Pros:
    • This would save us some of the bundling, packaging and distribution pain
  • Cons:
    • This will break installations for deployments out there (i.e., bare metal deployments)
    • Such a change can only be done with a major version change and will not be possible in the short term
• conda as alternative to pip which also manages the Python environment was also discussed to distribute the st2 Python packages, but we want to avoid that
• The high number of Python version we may have to support in the future raised some concerns:
  • Python3.6 would be required for CentOS7 support
  • Python3.7 would allow us to support Ubuntu 18.04
  • Python3.8 would at least be required for Ubuntu 20 and CentOS8
  • Python3.9 would be needed to support Debian 11
  • Python3.10 would be needed to run st2 on Ubuntu 22

---

Draft for the next TSC meeting agenda:

StackStorm AWS cost-reduction project ~(5min)

• See the previous meeting for the issue description and more context: TSC Meeting (01 Feb 2022): New pack content overrides, AWS, v3.7.0 progress #97
• Project: https://github.com/orgs/StackStorm/projects/27
• Follow-up on the first batch of distributed tasks (Slack link):
  • Migrate internal monitoring server to free 3rd party service (Scalyr) (@Kami)
  • Replace paid RHEL8 to free Rocky8 e2e testing [1] [2] (@amanda11)
  • AWS Route53 cleanup, Right-size the AWS e2e and VPN instances (-$120/mo) (@armab)
  • In progress: run st2-self-check in GH Actions, instead of st2cicd e2e tests (@winem)
  • Migrate api.stackstorm.com to GH static pages (@bishopbm1)
  • Experiment with the AWS spot instances for running e2e test VMs: U16,U18,EL7,EL8
  • Migrate docs.stackstorm.com to GH static pages #1096 (@guzzijones)

Demo: migration to Scalyr monitoring for internal st2cicd infra by @Kami ~(10min)

• See: Migrate internal monitoring to free 3rd party service st2ci#208
• Highlight the new system, dashboards, monitors, how to operate it, and use it collectively as @StackStorm/maintainers

Run st2-self-check in GH Actions ~(5min)

• current state of the PR CI should run st2-self-check for every PR st2#5496
• how to handle tests with HTTP actions - the only ones that still fail
• agree on the MVP to start with the self-check in GH Actions (older Python versions seem to be a problem, I'll provide details during the meeting)