[one-users] Problems with VM lifecycle on OpenNebula+Haizea

[Nikola Milutinovic]

Hi all.

I am cross posting this to both ONE and Haizea mailing lists, because 
this looks like an issue caught in between. We are having problems with 
stopping and starting already deployed VMs when Haizea is the scheduler.

Our setup is:

ONE
-----
Ubuntu Linux 9.0.4
OpenNebula 1.4 beta2 (planning to upgrade to 1.4 RC1)
Haizea 0.9.2
Python 2.6

HYPERVISORS (2 hosts)
------------------
OpenSUSE 10.3
VMWare Server 2.0.2

We have managed to install OpenNebula and it is working with this setup 
to our satisfaction. One minor discomfort that we see is when we 
manually shutdown a VM, wither via VMWare or the machine itself is 
shutdown - ONE will display it in state "unknown" and then we cannot 
manipulate it from our web GUI via XML-RPC.

We needed to add Haizea to the mix, since we wanted VM deployment 
scheduling, although we did not need lease times (we run as "unlimited", 
at the moment). We are using templates which have a HAIZEA=[...] section 
for this. As described in the docs. The preemption was set to "no".

We are facing two problems, right now.

PROBLEM 1
--------------
When we deploy a VM  with "onevm submit <path to the template>" and then 
during its work shut it down or delete it, Haizea is not aware of this 
change. The lease for that machine remains active and may prevent other 
VM deployments.

PROBLEM 2
--------------
When we deploy a machine as described above, and then do "stop" on it, 
via XML-RPC (we have our own web GUI application), it gets saved. When 
we try to resume that machine, it stays stuck in state "pending" and 
there is no action that can revive it.

For problem #1 one may argue that we pulled the rug under Haizea's feet, 
but I don't see it that way. Haizea, IMO, should work with OpenNebula 
and be aware of its state. It should query or be notified (when the 
event mechanism is implemented) of such a change. It should be aware 
that the lease is not being used at that moment. It may seam from one 
perspective that this is wrong, that Haizea should be the one scheduling 
the runs of the VMs. But take a look at Amazon, they will allow you to 
deploy a machine, run it at certain times, turn it off, turn it on again 
and so forth. How does that fit into Haizea's view of the world?

For problem #2 I cannot find a good excuse. It seams to me that the 
starting a stopped machine is waiting for a "green light" from the 
scheduler, in this case Haizea. Haizea is not seeing a new lease 
request, since this is not a new request. Consequently, Haizea is not 
signaling OpenNebula to launch the machine and it stays in state 
"pending" forever. Again this really seams to be the problem of "I would 
like to run and stop my VM, any number of times, inside the same lease 
period".

Does what we are trying to do make sense?

I don't think we can map leases to our VM runs in 1-1 fashion, since we 
would like the machine to start from where it stopped in the previous 
run, not from the starting template image.

Nix.
-- 
Met vriendelijke groet / Kind regards,
Nikola Milutinovic
Sr Java Developer
Levi9 Global Sourcing
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