No support for Volume Availability Zone

[asaenz-vmware]

I see the availabilty zone in the information that comes back for the Volume, but I don't see any Dasein method of getting it.

2013-01-16 11:40:50,102 [http-bio-8080-exec-3] DEBUG dasein.cloud.nova.wire.NovaOpenStack - {"volumes": [{"status": "available", "display_name": null, "attachments": [], "availability_zone": "nova", "created_at": "2012-12-03 22:33:30", "display_description": null, "volume_type": "None", "snapshot_id": null, "size": 6, "id": "274", "metadata": {}}, {"status": "in-use", "display_name": "VOL", "attachments": [{"device": "/dev/vdc", "server_id": "c8a399ec-bcbc-45c6-954e-21e8a13d436f", "id": "314", "volume_id": "314"}], "availability_zone": "nova", "created_at": "2013-01-02 21:39:49", "display_description": "VOL", "volume_type": "None", "snapshot_id": null, "size": 7, "id": "314", "metadata": {}}]}

[greese]

What version of OpenStack are you working with?

Technically, a Dasein "data center" (volume.getProviderDataCenterId()) maps to an availability zone. But it doesn't with OpenStack because OpenStack has not historically supported the concept.

[asaenz-vmware]

We're on Essex. The problem is the volume.getProviderDataCenterId() returns "RegionOne-a" for us, but I'd really like it to return 'nova' which I figured would be fine since the return json has that in there. I will admit though that I am only somewhat knowledgeable about what is going on 'under the covers'.

[greese]

I need to put some thought into this. There may be some odd differences among deployments of the same release.

Basically, getProviderDataCenterId() needs to return "nova" in this instance somehow.

[greese]

I've been working on this only to find that availability zone support in OpenStack is a huge cluster fuck. There are no API mechanisms for looking up availability zones in OpenStack, so the DataCenterServices can't work properly.

The whole AZ support is optional, and there's no way from an API perspective to know if it is enabled. In fact, the only indication it exists is in the attributes for an instance or a cinder volume.

Even worse, the coupling between nova availability zones and cinder availability zones is loose and poorly defined.

In short, I'm stumped on how to make this work given the current state of AZs in OpenStack. I'd actually recommend staying away from this feature of OpenStack.

[greese]

By the way, I'm leaving this open until the OpenStack bugs are addressed.