With Libcloud 1.0.0 around the corner, it’s time to have a spring clean of the compute drivers. Granted, it’s not spring everywhere -actually I’m writing from Sydney, Australia where it’s definitely summer.

Looking at the 52 providers in the 0.21.0 release, I have identified 5 providers that are no longer available or open.

• CloudFrames
• Looks dead - website doesn’t work, can’t see any references to this online.
• libcloud.compute.drivers.cloudframes
• HP Public Cloud (Helion)
• Shut down on 31st of January 2016
• libcloud.compute.drivers.hpcloud
• IBM SmartCloud Enterprise
• Shut down 2014, customers instructed to move to SoftLayer
• libcloud.compute.drivers.ibm_sce
• Ninefold
• Ninefold shut down in January 2016
• libcloud.compute.drivers.ninefold
• Opsource
• Dimension Data acquired OpSource in 2012, the Opsource driver is succeeded by the Dimension Data driver.
• libcloud.compute.drivers.opsource

Handling deprecated drivers

For 1.0.0, we need a clean and user-friendly way of handling deprecated drivers as well as keeping the repository clean from legacy code.

The most obvious implementation is that calls to get_driver(Provider.NINEFOLD) as an example will return a user error message saying this provider is no longer supported with a link to a new article and an alternative solution.

Currently, users trying to instantiate a HPE public cloud driver for example will get a connection error, which is not user friendly.

New compute drivers in 1.0.0-pre2

The upcoming release, so currently available in trunk contains some new compute drivers.

• NTT America Public Cloud
• Internet Solutions Public Cloud
• Med-1 Public Cloud
• Indosat Cloud
• BSNL IDC Cloud

Full change log can be found at here.