Add OpenInfra User Group Meeting post

content/post/openinfra-user-group-meeting-2024.md

+---
+title: "OpenInfra User Group Meeting at CERN"
+date: 2024-07-15T17:30:01+02:00
+draft: false
+author: Luis Fernandez Alvarez
+tags: ["openinfra", "openstack", "ironic", "meetup"]
+---
+
+As part of the [OpenInfra Days Europe 2024](https://openinfra.dev/days), the
+CERN IT cloud team had the pleasure of organising a two-day event, combining
+a [Bare Metal SIG/Ironic Meetup](https://indico.cern.ch/event/1378171/) on 5th
+June 2024 and an [OpenInfra User Group Meeting](https://indico.cern.ch/event/1376907/)
+Switzerland on 6th June 2024. This event is the 3rd of this kind that CERN IT organizes
+after the [OpenStack User Group](https://indico.cern.ch/event/273593/) in 2013
+and the [OpenStack Day CERN](https://indico.cern.ch/event/776411/) in 2019.
+
+The **Bare Metal SIG/Ironic Meetup** was a full day event chaired by Jay Faulkner
+and Riccardo Pittau as the PTLs of the previous and the current development cycles.
+The morning session was dedicated to discuss Ironic's history, features and deprecations.
+You shouldn't miss Jay's talk about [the Ironic Toolbox](https://videos.cern.ch/record/2300308)
+and Riccardo's presentation about [Metal3](https://videos.cern.ch/record/2300310).
+
+{{< figure src="../../img/post/2024_openinfra_sig_room.jpg"
+    caption="Participants of the Bare Metal SIG/Ironic Meetup"
+    class="caption"
+>}}
+
+An open discussion session run through the whole afternoon. Topics ranged
+from operational issues, feature wishlists, shaping of existing functionality
+and future plans. You can check the fruits of this lively discussion in the
+[event etherpad](https://etherpad.opendev.org/p/baremetal-sig-cern-june-5-2024).
+
+A visit to the [CERN Data Centre](https://home.cern/science/computing/data-centre)
+completed the event, together with a meetup dinner.
+
+The day after, the **OpenInfra User Group Meeting** started. It welcomed more than
+80 participants from 28 different organizations. The event served as a hub to
+discuss common areas of interest, share experiences and foster collaboration
+across the various representatives from academia, research institutions,
+cloud providers, telecommunications, financial companies and other IT firms.
+
+Participants were welcomed at the [CERN Science Gateway](https://visit.cern/) in 
+the morning to participate in a series of visits to the
+[Antimatter Factory](https://home.cern/science/physics/antimatter), the
+[LINAC2](https://home.cern/science/accelerators/linear-accelerator-2) and the
+[LEIR](https://home.cern/science/accelerators/low-energy-ion-ring).
+
+{{< figure src="../../img/post/2024_openinfra_visits.jpg"
+    caption="Visit groups during the OpenInfra event"
+    class="caption"
+>}}
+
+After lunch, a series of presentations took place in the IT Amphitheatre. The session
+started with a welcome talk by Enrica Porcari as the IT department head where she
+highlighted the commitment of CERN with the various open source communities it contributes to
+and the importance of keeping them alive and energized.
+
+{{< figure src="../../img/post/2024_openinfra_welcome.png"
+    caption="Enrica welcoming the participants of the OpenInfra event"
+    class="caption"
+>}}
+
+Arne Wiebalck, head of the Compute and Devices group in CERN IT, gave an overview of
+the role IT plays at CERN and the history of the CERN OpenStack private cloud - why it was
+adopted, how it started and where it is now.
+
+{{< figure src="../../img/post/2024_openinfra_cloud_journey.jpg"
+    caption="Arne presenting the CERN Private Cloud Journey"
+    class="caption"
+>}}
+
+The talks continued with José Castro León, technical lead of the CERN Cloud Service,
+presented in detail the current status of their OpenStack deployment, the adoption
+process of the new Prevessin Data Centre and the challenges ahead for the service.
+
+{{< figure src="../../img/post/2024_openinfra_private_cloud.jpg"
+    caption="José starting his talk about the CERN OpenStack private cloud"
+    class="caption"
+>}}
+
+Mattia Belluco, Cloud Architect at the [Scientific IT Services of ETH Zurich](https://sis.id.ethz.ch/),
+showed how they leverage OpenStack as an orchestration layer for their secured HPC service and
+how they offer services like Kubernetes to their user community.
+
+{{< figure src="../../img/post/2024_openinfra_eth_zurich.jpg"
+    caption="Mattia presenting their infrastructure at ETH Zurich"
+    class="caption"
+>}}
+
+This first block was completed by Axel Jacquet and Siméon Gourlin, Site Reliability Engineers at
+[Infomaniak](https://www.infomaniak.com/). The presentation covered the design of their new
+data centres and how the heat generated is being used to heat a residential neighborhood in
+Switzerland. They presented as well the role OpenStack plays as the foundation of their public
+cloud offering and what are the main challenges they are confronted with operating it.
+
+{{< figure src="../../img/post/2024_openinfra_infomaniak.png"
+    caption="Axel & Siméon about to start their presentation about the Infomaniak infrastructure"
+    class="caption"
+>}}
+
+After this first block of presentations, a short coffee break gave participants the opportunity
+to get some fresh air and start some discussions.
+
+Right after coffee, Jay Faulkner, open source developer at [G-Research](https://www.gresearch.com/)
+and former PTL of Ironic, changed the subject and the tempo of the event with an
+energetic presentation about the impact of technology, giving a different prespective
+to our job in the OpenInfra ecosystem.
+
+{{< figure src="../../img/post/2024_openinfra_mundane.jpg"
+    caption="Jay presenting 'Open Infrastructure: From Monumental to Mundane and Back Again'"
+    class="caption"
+>}}
+
+The session was completed with three more technical presentations about Kubernetes,
+GPUs and Networking.
+
+Matt Pryor, Senior Tech Lead at [StackHPC](https://www.stackhpc.com/), presented
+an overview of Cluster API and its benefits to manage Kubernetes clusters through
+Magnum and Azimuth.
+
+{{< figure src="../../img/post/2024_openinfra_capi.jpg"
+    caption="Matt starting the overview of Cluster API"
+    class="caption"
+>}}
+
+
+Sylvain Bauza, Principal Software Engineer at [Red Hat](https://www.redhat.com/)
+and Nova/Placement PTL, shared the latest developments in Nova to offer virtual
+GPUs in OpenStack to end-users. The presentation included hands-on recordings
+of the different operations.
+
+{{< figure src="../../img/post/2024_openinfra_vgpus.jpg"
+    caption="Sylvain while showing vGPU live migration, one of the latest features in Caracal"
+    class="caption"
+>}}
+
+Bernard Cafarelli, Associate Manager of Software Engineering at
+[Red Hat](https://www.redhat.com/) closed the presentations with a comprehensive
+overview of the work done in the OVN BGP agent and their plans for the future.
+
+{{< figure src="../../img/post/2024_openinfra_ovn.jpg"
+    caption="Bernard answering questions after his talk about the ovn-bpg-agent"
+    class="caption"
+>}}
+
+If you want to know more details about any of the presentations, you will find
+all the material availabe in the [Timetable](https://indico.cern.ch/event/1376907/timetable/#20240606)
+section of the event site.
+
+The presentations were followed by a group photo. Initially planned to be taken outdoors in front
+of the data centre, weather conditions forced us to look for a plan B. The photo was
+finally taken at the CERN Main Building:
+
+{{< figure src="../../img/post/2024_openinfra_group.jpg"
+    caption="Group photo of the participants of the OpenInfra User Group Meeting"
+    class="caption"
+>}}
+
+A cocktail sponsored by CERN IT was offered to all the participants of the event,
+a perfect opportunity to get a well deserved break after an intense day and to
+initiate discussions of the many topics presented during the day.
+
+We would like to thank all the speakers for their contribution,
+the participants for taking the time to join us and contribute to
+such a memorable day, and all the members of the organisation that
+helped with the event.