[layer5-maintainers] CNCF Interest in Meshery as the Cloud Native Playground

[Lee Calcote]

All,

A proposal for a hosted instance of Meshery to be the CNCF’s playground has been put forth. Below is the initial response from staff who have begun to consider what this might mean.

Much work ahead of us, but pause for a moment and reflect at the impression people have of the work you’ve done. Pretty cool.

I have secured Meshery and the CNCF Ambassador program a spot on the next Ambassador’s meeting, which is in April. It skips a month due to KubeCon EU in March. In the meantime, I’ll be scheduling meetings for us and a number of Ambassadors for an individual introduction to Meshery.

- Lee

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jeffrey Sica <js...@linuxfoundation.org>

Subject: Re: CNCF Maintainer Scholarship for Lee

Date: February 20, 2024 at 2:27:20 PM CST

To: Chris Aniszczyk <canis...@linuxfoundation.org>

Cc: Lee Calcote <lee.c...@layer5.io>, Jeffrey Sica <je...@linuxfoundation.org>

In short, this looks dope. A common piece of feedback we hear is it's difficult to see all the pieces fit together. As we grow in projects, that feedback gets louder. 

A playground that functionally and practically demonstrates how things can connect would be valuable to both end users and our ambassadors. The one use-case I'm luke-warm on is Projects/Maintainers. I think there's value in giving them a platform to both demonstrate their project AND show a sane-or-golden-standard deployment. I also think they'll need some convincing at first. 

Practical thoughts:

- Branding is something I'm not going to speak much on, that is a Chris thing. If it's truly white-label at play.cncf.io, with a thanks/attribution to Layer5, that would probably be ideal (and the extent I'll say lol)

- I'd want to roll this out to a subset of Ambassadors and get their hands-on feedback before casting a wider net

- It would be nice to see a story on a project that joins the CNCF and wants to leverage this. What would they go through, how could they leverage this? Kind of a holistic approach. 

Leading up to KubeCon my time also kind of sucks, but if you want to hop on a call and chat more about it, happy to volunteer my calendar :) 

On Mon, Feb 19, 2024 at 6:59 AM Chris Aniszczyk <canis...@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

@Jeffrey Sica can you take a look at this and give some feedback when you have time

Right now Lee, I'm pretty slammed until kubecon EU.

On Sun, Feb 18, 2024 at 9:15 PM Lee Calcote <lee.c...@layer5.io> wrote:

Hi Chris!

I've got that CNCF playground proposal on paper - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cr0MxlOxWq70d-BUisfKXF_VPGss0hK8XqRxy4xm4YE/edit?usp=sharing.

This document primarily captures the concept, why it is needed, who it benefits and how. There's additional context and demo to share in terms of its proposed implementation that I would love to offer on a call, if you're up for one.

- Lee

On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 10:45 AM Chris Aniszczyk <canis...@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

This is a much longer conversation to have, I think there can be some value here for the wider CNCF ecosystem

I'm happy to discuss at kubecon if you have a rough proposal.

We do have a partnership with folks like https://killercoda.com etc that offer a similar thing for CNCF projects but a bit different than what you're proposing.

On Thu, Oct 12, 2023 at 8:31 AM Lee Calcote <lee.c...@layer5.io> wrote:

I do want to catch up and run an idea by you. I’m going to see about rearranging my schedule to visit with you today. In case I’m not successful, I’ll describe the concept:

CNCF Playground, a hosted environment in which users can explore and interact with all CNCF projects - a benefit to both users and projects.

Within TAG Network and Meshery, we’ve been working on a cloud native playground (in some respects as a very extended continuation of the “CNCF demo” work that Dan Kohn was stewarding) —https://play.meshery.io. Meshery and its plugins integrate with every CNCF project, allowing people to visually design, and deploy Kubernetes-based infrastructure. 

Most projects don’t have hosted playgrounds in which would-be users or existing users can configure, deploy, and explore a single project, much less any number of them in the same environment. While the playground’s cluster is wiped clean on a nightly basis, the designs that users and projects create are saved, so it can be used as:

- a catalog of project-curated, configuration and deployment best practices

- a training ground for certification study

I just put this teaser video together this week, which offers a little more insight as to the collaborative nature of the playground.

Of the TOC members that I’ve spoken with, so far, they’ve been quite supportive of the initiative, but they could just be giving the idea lip service. What do you think? Is your sense that this concept have enough merit to continue chasing and propose? Or do you consider such a proposal would only find itself mired in politics?

- Lee

On Oct 11, 2023, at 9:16 AM, Chris Aniszczyk <canis...@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

-everyone else

No worries, you've done so much for the cloud native community, this is a small thing we can do anytime for our maintainers.

If you are around tomorrow and want to catch up over tacos, I'll be here: https://www.spyderbat.com/austin-meetup

On Tue, Oct 10, 2023 at 1:34 PM Lee Calcote <lee.c...@layer5.io> wrote:

Hi Chris,

I’m a bit emotional over this and am having a difficult time articulating how warm this makes me feel inside. I appreciate this greatly and am offering a fair warning in advance: there may well be hugs involved the next time we meet. Your support means a good deal to me.

Hi Wendi,

I realize this is a tardy submission and unorthodox mode of submitting an application for consideration of a maintainer scholarship to the upcoming KubeCon NA, however, I would be grateful if you might facilitate queuing the attached application into queue for consideration.

Thank you so much,
- Lee Calcote




> On Oct 10, 2023, at 1:26 PM, Chris Aniszczyk <canis...@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
> Hey Wendi, I'd like to offer Lee a maintainer scholarship for kubecon NA to Chicago.
>
> --
> Chris Aniszczyk (@cra)

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Chris Aniszczyk (@cra)

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Chris Aniszczyk (@cra)

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Layer5

expect more from your infrastructure

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Chris Aniszczyk (@cra)

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Jeffrey Sica (@jeefy)

Head of Projects, CNCF