*TL;DR: CentOS CI is going hardwareless and if you wish your project remains using it, we need your opt-in by August 2022. There is a Dojo Summer 2022 https://wiki.centos.org/Events/Dojo/Summer2022 session happening on Thursday, June 17th, that will explain further technical details. *

Hello everyone,

As many of you know, since the beginning of this year we have been reevaluating the future of CentOS CI, as currently the hardware being used for it is out of warranty. This is due to the fact that CentOS CI came from community donations of hardware which were maintained in a best effort manner by our team. With no warranties, when the physical machine dies we have no means to replace it. Right now though, our hardware, due to a lack of warranty, will not be moved with the upcoming data center changes due to data center requirements to have in warranty hardware for supportability. We decided to take this opportunity to modernize our current infrastructure, pushing it to a hybrid cloud environment. Duffy CI will become the main tool from now on, so that we can support the CI workflow and best practices on cloud and for this reason, the current hardware infra will no longer be available soon. However, as an effort to continuously provide resources and support CI best practices for projects, our team is adapting Duffy CI so that we can maintain most of the characteristics of our current, physical-based offering.

At the technical level, what does that mean for you, CI tenants?

-

A new Duffy API service will replace the existing one: while it will be running in compatibility/legacy mode with the previous version, you will need to adapt your workflow to the new API, but more details below -

We will transition to AWS EC2 instances for the aarch64 and x86_64 architectures by default, with a (limited) option to request “metal” instances for projects requiring virtualization for their tests (like KVM/vagrant/etc) -

We will keep a (very small) Power9 infra “on-premise” (AWS does not support ppc64le) for the ppc64le tests (available through a dedicated VPN tunnel) -

The existing OpenShift cluster will be also decommissioned and a new one (hosted in AWS, so without an option to run kubevirt operator nor VMs) will be then used (you will have to migrate from one to the other)

With that being said, tenants can start preparing for the changes to happen with the maximum deadline of the end of December 2022 wherein at this point, Duffy API legacy mode will be removed. You are required to opt-in if you and/or your team want to use Duffy CI. Projects will only be migrated if they reply to this email confirming that they wish to proceed. Worth knowing that not opting in means that your API key will not be migrated and so all your requests to get temporary/ephemeral nodes will be rejected by the new Duffy API.

The maximum decommission deadline of the current hardware infrastructure is December 12th, 2022 and the new Duffy CI will go live in August 2022, so please, complete your migration process by the end of CY22. Reminders of deadlines and of the opt-in requirements will be sent monthly, but your confirmation of opt-in is required by August 2022. When approaching December, reminders about deadlines frequency will increase so that we can ensure effective communication throughout the process.

Here are the steps in which we will migrate CI Infra:

Phase 1 - Deploy Duffy V3 (August 2022)

-

Deploy in legacy/compatibility mode, so existing tenants (that opted in !) can still request duffy nodes the same way (like with 'python-cicoclient') : no change at tenants side, and exactly same hardware for tests (transparent migration) -

New Duffy API endpoint becomes available, and tenants can start adapting their workflows to point to new API (new ‘duffy-cli’ tool coming, with documentation) -

Bare metal and VMs options will be available already through the new API (x86_64, aarch64, ppc64le)

Phase 2 - Hybrid Cloud (October 2022)

-

Legacy/compatibility API endpoint will handover EC2 instances instead of local seamicro nodes (VMs vs bare metal) -

Bare metal options will be available through the new API only -

Legacy seamicro and aarch64/ThunderX hardware are decommissioned -

Only remaining "on-premise" option is ppc64le (local cloud)

Phase 3 - Decommission (December 2022)

-

Legacy/compatibility API deprecated and requests (even for EC2 instances) will no longer be accepted -

All tenants that opted in will be using only EC2 for aarch64/x86_64 and on-premise cloud for ppc64le

OpenShift new deployment planning and timeline

To be defined (deadline for planning and timeline: end of June 2022)

Do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. It is worth knowing that there will be a dedicated session about the Future of CentOS CI infra at the next CentOS Dojo happening on June 17h (check Dojo Summer 2022 https://wiki.centos.org/Events/Dojo/Summer2022). That session will be recorded and then available on Youtube but if you have any questions. Feel free to join the CentOS Dojo and reach out to us!

Best regards,