Sprint Workshop For The Second Version of Abramad Cloud Platform
Goal: Design and Develop Abramad Cloud Platform.
Squad
Mohammadreza Mousavi: Product Design Lead & Workshop Facilitator
Amir Rezaie: VP of Abramad Product
Malihe Asemani: Cloud and OpenStack Engineer
Mohammadhossein Khoshraftar: Cloud and VMWare Engineer
Soheil Bakan: Cloud and OpenStack Engineer
Hamidreza: Back-End Developer
Day 1
Phase One – Introduction
In this phase, the workshop participants were introduced to the tasks that would be performed and the Design Process.
Phase Two – Hills
Participants were asked to identify the objective of the session in line with the Hills model in IBM, based on their knowledge and research for more focus and alignment.
In determining our goal, we prioritized our users as experts or mid-level individuals based on their knowledge, to create a virtual machine on a cloud platform in the fastest, easiest way possible.
Who: IT professionals, mid-level individuals
What: To create a virtual machine on a cloud platform
Wow: To create it in the fastest, easiest way
Phase Three – Sprint Map
In this phase, we identified the sections that our users need to reach their goal, based on their goal, and placed them on the Sprint Map.
Phase Four – Assumptions and Questions
In this phase, we used the Assumptions and Questions board to allow participants to raise their own questions and assumptions about the project based on their insights, particularly regarding technical concerns and issues. Participants discussed various topics, ranging from pricing models to technical capabilities.
At the end of the Assumptions and Questions session, we determined the next steps in the following sessions. Participants were required to investigate the need for benchmarking on building and managing virtual machine models on AWS and GCP platforms. In the next session, we will review the results and discuss interesting points and prominent features of the platforms in building and managing a virtual machine model.
Phase Five – Competitors Benchmark
In this session, team members presented their positive points and feedback from their separate evaluations of the AWS and GCP platforms. We then examined the IBM Cloud and Amazon Lightsail platforms, and finally compared all platforms to identify their useful features.
Phase Six – Product Must Have Features
Based on the review phase of all popular platforms, team members decided on the initial features that our cloud platform, Abramad should have them at first to build a virtual machine in the first product release.
Phase Seven – Using Analogy Thinking Board
At this stage, the team members shared their feedback on different platforms such as IBM and AWS by using the Analogy Thinking approach and tool. Feedback was based on their reviews of various cloud platforms and their identification of these brands in the first workshop such as AWS and GCP.
Day 3
Initially, the team examined Iranian cloud platforms such as XaaS and AsiaTech to identify their prominent features, in accordance with the previous session and the Analogy Thinking board. Following that, the team reviewed the VM design model in GCP to identify its technical issues and capabilities. After that, The facilitator asked participants to introduce the prominent and presentable features of OpenStack and VMWare. So that they could decide which features to use in the initial conditions of their cloud platform.
Phase Eight - Identifying Prominent Features in the Analogy Thinking Board for Cloud Platforms
In this phase, participants transferred features from the Case Study section to the Company section that they thought would be appealing and useful for cloud users and meet their needs, based on all their observations without any limitations.
Afterward, we asked each participant to present the features they selected and discuss about them.
Phase Nine - Using Innovation Battlefield Board
After reviewing the ideas, we used the Innovation Battlefield Board to categorize all the proposed features based on four sections as you see and their potential impact on users:
Amazing Features
Useful Features
Must-Have Features
Features that are unnecessary at this stage
Phase Ten - Visualize Ideas & Brainstorming
Based on our analysis of various ideas and feasible features, participants began designing the overall structure of the cloud platform for building a virtual machine. Facilitator asked them to design the process of building the virtual machine for users.
During this phase, technical and specialized questions were asked based on the product strategy. The team members' ideas were later documented.
In this phase, participants presented their visual ideas and explained them individually. Afterwards, the team decided that the OpenStack team would collaborate with the Product team to prepare a feature document based on the ideas and features raised. The Product Map board would then be designed, and the platform's MVP would be developed.
Phase Eleven - Providing OpenStack Features by Our Engineers and comparing them with the current VMware.
In this phase, participants identified and examined the features of OpenStack and its competitors, adding a confirmation column to express the rationale, a Value column to indicate the value of each feature, and the benchmark service evolution model. The following features were identified:
Internet Protocol network - Private Network - Floating IP
Security
Firewall
SSH key - adding a password to the machine, Inject Password
Personal operating system upload on VM
Rebuild
Changing Flavor
Creating Snapshots
Adding or Removing Interfaces on VM
Assigning a floating IP
Adding or Removing Disk
Rescuing a machine
Suspending a machine
Hard reboot or soft reboot
Group Snapshot
Uploading personal image
Viewing action log
Log
Deleting Instance
Console