Add a config option to enable Convergence

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/heat/+spec/convergence-config-option

Problem description

The new convergence architecture is a major change to the code base. In order to decouple landing the necessary changes from the release cycle while maintaining stability for end users, we need to develop it alongside existing code and tests and avoid breaking existing code until such time as convergence can pass the functional test suite.

Proposed change

Add a config option that allows the operator to enable the convergence code path for new stacks. The option will initially be off by default. We will enable it as soon as convergence has landed and is in a working state (passes functional tests), provided that doing so does not create an undue level of risk (i.e. if this happened to occur right before feature freeze, we would likely delay changing the default until after the release).

Also add a flag to the Stack table to indicate whether each stack should use existing legacy code path or convergence code path. All pre-existing stacks will continue using the legacy code path. New stacks will use the code path selected by the operator via the config option.

At some point in the future, we will create a tool that allows us to populate existing legacy stacks with the additional data required to start using them with the convergence code. Once we have such a migration tool we can deprecate the legacy code path, and after an appropriate interval and once all of the legacy ‘unit’ tests that require it have been converted to functional tests we can remove that code path altogether.

Alternatives

In addition to the config option, we could also allow the user to select on each stack create whether to use the legacy or convergence code. This could make funtional testing easier, as we wouldn’t need to change the configuration to test the two parts. However, the downside is that it exposes to the user what should be an implementation detail.

Implementation

Assignee(s)

Primary assignee:

prazumovsky

Milestones

Target Milestone for completion:

Kilo-3

Work Items

• Implement the config option

Dependencies

None