Support for ppc64le architecture for build-tools images

[MatthieuSarter]

This allows to build the build-tools and build-tools-proxy images for ppc64le.

Some tools are missing a ppc64le build, for now I skipped them, they seem not mandatory to build istio.

I also had to bump docker and containerd versions, respectively from 20.10.6 to 20.10.7 and from 1.4.3 to 1.4.6, as previous versions are not available on ppc64le.

Please note that I have not been able to test if the image still builds on ARM64.

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[istio-testing]

Hi @MatthieuSarter. Thanks for your PR.

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[howardjohn]

Whats the end goal? Are we expecting someone to build a full Istio build (with envoy) on ppc64le and actually use it?

I am a bit hesitant to make this super complex with emulated builds etc. For ARM its a bit different since there is substantial demand for production workloads, as well as cloud support. While we are emulating right now, soon we will have ARM CI nodes. I doubt we will ever have ppc64le nodes...

[MatthieuSarter]

Yes our goal is to build a full istio on ppc64le.

I understand your concerns about the difficulty to include the ppc in the CI workflow. I will see with my management if we can do something about this.

[MatthieuSarter]

@howardjohn , we can provide you ppc64le VMs hosted at OSU Open Source Lab.

If this is ok for you, you can request nodes through this form, with Christy Norman (@clnperez) as "IBM Advocate".

If this does not meet your requirements, you can give me more details about your needs and we will see what we can do.

[howardjohn]

I think in order to add an official support architecture we will need, at a minimum:

• Substantial demand from Istio users
• Official support from prow, our CI/CD system
• Enough capacity to run our builds and tests - at least 500 vCPUs.
• Ability for our development team to develop, test, and debug - ie access to machines with the architecture

I haven't seen much demand, if any, from Istio users for this.

[istio-testing]

@MatthieuSarter: PR needs rebase.

Instructions for interacting with me using PR comments are available here. If you have questions or suggestions related to my behavior, please file an issue against the kubernetes/test-infra repository.

[clnperez]

@howardjohn can we negotiate on that substantial demand requirement? We're willing to provide the human and compute resources for supporting ppc64le; and, like any project we're involved in, will upkeep the CI, fix issues, and contribute in more general ways. If at any time you feel we're not contributing we wouldn't begrudge being kicked out of the project. ;)

We're trying to future-proof for Power customers. Someone is less likely to become or stay a Power customer if not much software supports it. Of course we also understand that there has to be some benefit to you. istio on Power has the potential to attract some large customers of course, but, in addition, there is the added benefit of hardening projects on larger systems. In projects like Docker, Kubernetes, and go (projects I've been involved in), Power and s390x hit scale issues and stress projects in ways that make them more robust.

And FYI, I've done some background work to get envoy building on ppc64le, and that's been upstream for quite a while. We can build and run istio on ppc64le as well, just would like to be given the opportunity to get that code upstream.

==

Another option is that we get the support to build the code in and run our own CI, and you can think about "support" later.

🙏🏻

[howardjohn]

In the short term I recommend building and publishing outside of the core Istio project. https://github.com/querycap/istio is an example of a successful implementation of this for ARM64. Given the overwhelming demand for ARM64 and the minimal demand from users we have seen for ppc64le, I don't forsee use adding official support for ppc64le before arm64 (which is still not supported yet).

…

On Tue, Nov 9, 2021 at 12:46 PM cnorman ***@***.***> wrote: @howardjohn <https://github.com/howardjohn> can we negotiate on that substantial demand requirement? We're willing to provide the human and compute resources for supporting ppc64le; and, like any project we're involved in, will upkeep the CI, fix issues, and contribute in more general ways. If at any time you feel we're not contributing we wouldn't begrudge being kicked out of the project. ;) We're trying to future-proof for Power customers. Someone is less likely to become or stay a Power customer if not much software supports it. Of course we also understand that there has to be some benefit to you. istio on Power has the potential to attract some large customers of course, but, in addition, there is the added benefit of hardening projects on larger systems. In projects like Docker, Kubernetes, and go (projects I've been involved in), Power and s390x hit scale issues and stress projects in ways that make them more robust. And FYI, I've done some background work to get envoy building on ppc64le, and that's been upstream for quite a while. We can build and run istio on ppc64le as well, just would like to be given the opportunity to get that code usptream. Another option is that we get the support to build the code in and run our own CI, and you can think about "support" later. 🙏🏻 — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1681 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEYGXJACZVG37QUYTUL7DLULGCDRANCNFSM5CYSX6QQ> . Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub>.