Mojaloop Community Central: Tom

Interesting Clone and visit figures for mini-loop repo

Tom — Mon, 29 May 2023 03:59:25 +0000

Hi folks, it was fun to be invited to help out at the DFS labs Mojaloop sprint last week where as part of their projects a number of new organisations got Mojaloop running for the first time as well as some trying out v15.0.0. A (Mojaloop) community member advised me recently to keep a watch on the stats for mini-loop and so I thought I had better look at the repo traffic as perhaps the hack-a-thon traffic might show up. I believe there is some base level of cloners from "bots" unrelated to anything in our Mojaloop project (typically 6-8 from what I have read) the rest as far as I can tell seem to be genuinely indicative of folks who are installing or at last intending to install Mojaloop. To me this continues to be very gratifying, to see the hard work of the community being used and to see glimpses of the Mojaloop vision being realised.

Number of Clones in the last 2 weeks

Number of visitors in the last 2 weeks

LOKI (Linux OpenStack Kubernetes Infrastructure)

Tom — Wed, 10 May 2023 00:58:34 +0000

Hi Folks, just for fun I asked chatGPT :-

are there any advantages for running openstack and kubernetes together

I got the following response :

Yes, running OpenStack and Kubernetes together can offer several advantages. OpenStack is a cloud infrastructure platform that provides a wide range of services for managing compute, storage, and network resources. Kubernetes, on the other hand, is a container orchestration platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
By integrating OpenStack and Kubernetes, you can create a powerful hybrid cloud platform that combines the strengths of both technologies. Some of the advantages of running OpenStack and Kubernetes together are:
Resource management: OpenStack can provide Kubernetes with a pool of virtualized compute, storage, and network resources, which Kubernetes can use to deploy and manage containerized applications. This allows for more efficient resource utilization and better resource management.
High availability: OpenStack can provide Kubernetes with high availability and disaster recovery capabilities. OpenStack's built-in fault-tolerance features, such as automatic failover and live migration, can help ensure that Kubernetes workloads are highly available and resilient.
Scalability: OpenStack can provide Kubernetes with a scalable infrastructure. OpenStack's ability to dynamically provision and deprovision resources can help Kubernetes scale up or down as needed to meet the demands of containerized workloads.
Networking: OpenStack provides advanced networking features such as load balancing, security groups, and virtual private networks (VPNs). These features can be used by Kubernetes to manage network traffic and improve the security and performance of containerized applications.
Hybrid cloud: OpenStack and Kubernetes can be used together to create a hybrid cloud platform that spans both private and public clouds. This allows organizations to take advantage of the flexibility and scalability of the public cloud while maintaining control over their data and applications.
Overall, running OpenStack and Kubernetes together can help organizations build a more flexible, scalable, and efficient cloud infrastructure.

Now don't take this too seriously as it is just chatGPT and needs more serious research and thought, for instance asking about disadvantages it raises the obvious one of (arguably) increased complexity and also perhaps extra compute resource overhead. Be good not to dismiss this topic , and my plan later in the year is to put together Mojaloop on Openstack using initially some of the OpenSource canonical tools (charms, MaaS etc).

mini-loop for Mojaloop v15.0 ready for testing

Tom — Thu, 04 May 2023 23:11:07 +0000

I have mini-loop v5.0rc (release candidate) ready for testing to support and simplify the installation of the recent Mojaloop v15.0.0 release. It is available via the v5.0 branch at https://github.com/tdaly61/mini-loop.git. You can use :

 git clone --branch v5.0rc  https://github.com/tdaly61/mini-loop.git

This mini-loop v5.0 release candidate will deploy the recently released Mojaloop v15.0.0 along with the appropriate TTK version and attempts to make the deployment of Mojaloop even easier and more robust.

Notable changes:-

updated to allow use of kubernetes v1.26 or 1.27
updated to deploy Mojaloop v15.0.0 including deploying the now standard Mojaloop example backend services chart which deploys MySQL, Mongo, Kafka etc
simplified the directory structure and the names of the scripts installing and configuring both kubernetes (k8s-install.sh) and Mojaloop (mojaloop-install.sh)
added the mini-loop-simple-install.sh script to further simplify access to Mojaloop !
added the -o option to allowed the deployment and configuration of 3PPI and Bulk Mojaloop charts
added a statics section for the deployment, reporting memory usage, deployment times and a few other basic stats.
updated the utils/test/miniloop-test.sh script to run mini-loop in a "loop". This is the start of CI/CD tools that are aimed at reducing cloud costs for Mojaloop operators and developers.
added memory and disk space checks to make sure that there is enough memory and disk available for Mojaloop. It is currently set at 8GB Ram, this is a case of trying to "fail fast". The current alternative is confusion as kubernetes tries and fails to fit all pods into insufficient memory.

Some clarifying notes

I have been releasing mini-loop by doing a PR and merging to the master branch. So this is not yet a "release" as I want some (further) testing and feedback before I do the merge.
There are a number of (almost certainly minor) open issues effecting the running of the helm tests and the TTK for Mojaloop v15.0.0. They are documented in the issues for the Mojaloop v15 github repo and I expect these will resolved in the short term. If you run into the trouble running the helm tests please refer to the (excellent) Mojaloop v15.l0 release notes for instructions on running helm tests individually https://github.com/mojaloop/helm#testing-deployments

Mojaloop v15.0.0 memory use

Tom — Tue, 02 May 2023 05:13:14 +0000

During the convening in Zanzibar in late 2022 , I brought along a 4GB Intel NUC computer and demonstrated mini-loop deploying Mojaloop v14.x (probably release candidate). It was a bit slow on the NUC as it was a bit tight on memory but the helm deploy of the Mojaloop chart succeeded and subsequently the testing toolkit could be executed just fine. Back then we were trying to keep the memory use low for demo/test so as to enable (I thought) as many folks as possible to run on their laptops as I had assumed that most folks in East Africa would have 4GB laptops.

With that as background , I have been working on updating mini-loop to deploy and test the recent Mojaloop v15.0.0 release and also adding some instrumentation and extra checks to ensure the prerequisites for running Mojaloop are met. I am working on a 16GB VM (In Azure) and I noticed that when I deploy Mojaloop plus 3PPI and Bulk payments that 16 GB is barely enough and some of the pods seem to get get pre-empted by kubernetes during deployment. So I added some more instrumentation and then ran with 3PPI and bulk disabled to compare against that earlier experience with Mojaloop v14.1 (without yet going back and actually running v14.1)

I tested against k8s v1.25 and v1.26 (earlier 1.24) and all used about the same memory and I used mini-loop v5.0 (note: it is work in progress) but you can check it out and try it
git clone --branch v5.0 https://github.com/tdaly61/mini-loop.git

I haven't had time to investigate to thoroughly yet but below is the data reported from the latest versions of mini-loop deploy tool and I would be interested in any one else's observations or experience with running v15.0.0

********* mini-loop stats *******************************
kubernetes distro:version [k3s]:[v1.26]
installation options []
Number of pods running [46]
major processing times :
helm_install_ml: 718 seconds
helm_install_be: 263 seconds
repackage_ml: 162 seconds
install_ml: 728 seconds

[ Oh and note: if it appears like there is missing RAM, it is used by the page cache in Linux , so the most important column here is "RAM used" ]

Total system memory: 15.6284 GB

When | RAM used | RAM free | RAM used %

at_start | 1.11GB | 11.22GB | 9.00%
at_end | 8.80GB | 0.80GB | 91.67%

************ mini-loop stats ******************************

********* mini-loop stats *******************************
kubernetes distro:version [microk8s]:[v1.26]
installation options []
Number of pods running [45]
major processing times :
helm_install_ml: 1273 seconds
helm_install_be: 312 seconds
repackage_ml: 168 seconds
install_ml: 1284 seconds

Total system memory: 15.6284 GB

When RAM used RAM free RAM used %

at_start | 1.18GB | 10.62GB | 10.03%
at_end | 8.81GB | 0.77GB | 92.00%

Getting a Job in Tech (one approach)

Tom — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 09:52:17 +0000

Summary:

Acquire the skills
find a project and contribute
repeat until you find you are valuable to a project or you learn what project you should start !

Detail
IT might not be for everyone, but for those who want to get into the field almost everything a person requires to be able to "skill up" and develop "solid skills" is available for free online these days. I say almost because , yes some sort of modern-ish computer and an internet connection are both required to access the wealth of information and training material that is currently available. A reasonable computer with say 4GB ram and an internet connection with one or 2 GB of data per month is going to be quite functional to get started learning programing which I encourage is necessary to getting a technology job in the IT industry.

Why do I say that programing is necessary ? Well it is because learning programing and gaining some skills in "developing code" are fundamental to gaining an understanding of how computers function and how problems are solved with computers. Think of it like a musician learning to read music, or perhaps a surgeon learning anatomy, these are base skills that enable the acquisition of further skills. (Also yes, I am actively ignoring AI and chatGPT, coPilot for now but access to these can certainly help learn today even as they may change things fundamentally in the not too distant future )

So let's assume you have a functional computer and an internet connection and you can access the (free) learning resources available online, so then what should you do ? Here are my suggestions, they are not they only ways you can proceed of course but hopefully they are useful.

Firstly learn some python or java (see https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/ for python tutorial) try running as many examples as you can find and modifying them to see what happens (maybe download Visual Studio Code to enable you to edit and run the examples)
- make sure you understand how to start a simple python web server and serve pages from it
- make sure you understand how Python (or Java) classes work, and how object oriented programing is different from purely procedural code.
- Learn about modern cloud native applications and this means containers , e.g. docker (see docker.io)
Learn about modern cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS, or Microsoft Azure or Google GCP or perhaps try using the free resources at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
- understand how to login and how to create Virtual Machines , virtual networks and security rules
Learn about Kubernetes maybe on one of these cloud platforms using a free trial account including :
- deploying kubernetes clusters
- kubernetes namespaces
- deploying applications to kubernetes with HELM 3.0
- kubernetes RBAC and security
learn about CI/CD and automation of cloud and development tasks using Circle-CI, GitLab or Jenkins.

Once you have started to get some confidence with some of these skills here is the next important step. Find a modern cloud-native opensource project and start looking at how to contribute. When I say contribute I mean :

find out about the goals of the project and see what tasks are needing to be done i.e. find the documentation and any tutorials and perhaps try running the software to learn about it
find the issues list and then see if you can apply your skills to solving some of the simpler/smaller outstanding issues.
Join in the discussion lists and offer your contributions back to the community (ask and learn the processes for contributions)

What typically happens is that as you contribute to a project and your contributions are seen as valuable, then a number of things follow :

You gain detailed knowledge of the project AND you vastly improve your IT skills, i.e. those IT skills that are required by the project and many ancillary ones.
You start to get involved into the OpenSource community and into the discussions and this normally opens employment opportunities
You build your resume , and you increase your prospects for employment not just on the opensource project you are contributing to but much more broadly because of your expanding skill set
You may start to see new project and business opportunities and learns about ways to start your own business.

Persistence and diligence are the biggest skills you need to bring. When you meet something you do not understand, persist in trying to solve it , get deeper understanding of it or work around the issue if it is a blocker of larger goals. Google and more recently chatGPT are great at helping you both find resources to solve problems , but these are only helpers it is your persistence and willingness to try many many things that is ultimately your biggest asset in any IT related goal you have.

Microsoft completes open-sourcing of the Mojaloop Azure Marketplace deployment artefacts.

Tom — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 04:39:47 +0000

Hi folks , some really good news. Microsoft have finalised the open-sourcing of their work (done by the good folks at Sybrin) for deploying Mojaloop directly from the Azure Marketplace to Azure managed Kubernetes (AKS).

You can (and should) try out deploying Mojaloop to Azure AKS from the Azure Marketplace and you should do this no matter if you are a student interested in Kubernetes / cloud native applications or perhaps a business and finance person interested in payments infrastructure or in any other way interested in the Mojaloop application or environment.

Kim Walters wrote up some very simple deployment instructions for our recent Mojaloop meeting held in Kigali, including how to get a free trial Azure account for 30 days. You can find Kim's instructions at https://github.com/mojaloop/documentation-artifacts/blob/master/presentations/pi_21_march_2023/presentations/Mojaloop%20Azure%20Deployment.pdf

So why do you/we care that the deployment Mojaloop Azure details have been open sourced I hear you ask ?

Well ....

because it enables the Mojaloop community easy access to the packaging and automation work that has already been done (Microsoft have generously used a very unrestricted MIT license)
as this makes it much easier to update this work to deploy later releases of Mojaloop (e.g. Mojaloop v15)
as it makes it easier for us to add Mojaloop features to the existing deployment, for example bulk, 3ppi , BizOps framework etc
as it enables us to inco rporate the Microsoft work into Mojaloop should we wish

All of which enables us to continue to make Mojaloop easier to deploy and cheaper to run and test.

You can check out what they have done at : https://github.com/microsoft/Mojaloop-on-Azure also have a look at the PI-21 workstream for Azure Phase 2 at https://community.mojaloop.io/pi-21-workstreams to see the planned upgrade work

My thanks go to Microsoft (Jason / Mark ) for this and for supporting our community and to the folks at Sybrin for doing the initial work to enable more Mojaloop deployments :-)

p.s. Hey if you do try out the Mojaloop Azure Marketplace installation, please drop a comment on this article and let us know !

mini-loop PI-21 workstream updated

Tom — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 14:26:36 +0000

Hi folks, check out the updated mini-loop workstream at https://community.mojaloop.io/mini-loop. I would love your comments about the overall Goals that I have documented for the project and the detailed objectives for the PI

Mobile Payments in Uganda (a Muzungu experience) part #1

Tom — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 13:02:09 +0000

[ I know most of the payments experts in the community will already be familiar with the things that I have been excited to learn. Still I hope the short anecdotes about my learning will be in some way encouraging and even mildly amusing to some. ]

Arrival and Lunch

After the recent Mojaloop conference in Kigali my wife (Jill) and I had the wonderful opportunity to visit friends in Uganda both in Kampala and in the North in the Kamwenge district in a little village called Kibogo. We also slotted in a nice side trip to Queen Elizabeth Park (QEP) for a boat ride and safari, a trip which itself taught us a surprising amount about the Ugandan mobile payments landscape.

Upon arriving in Entebbe , our friends from Kampala picked us up and we stopped on the way back to their place for lunch at a pretty modern shopping centre (mall). The mobile money signs were everywhere including at the restaurant could pay for your lunch with MTN or seemingly to me less commonly Airtel. Ahh I thought, now all those conference sessions on merchant payments made sense to me (thanks Paul M), so too did the limitations become immediately obvious , for instance what if the restaurant had MTM but I used Airtel , then out with the cash it is. Well usually that is what happens, but as we were (are) muzungu and because this restaurant chain was large enough and as we had not yet visited the ATM then it was out with the mastercard. In fact it turns out that we could use our mastercard or visa credit card at malls like this , at some service stations (gas stations for those that speak USA) at electronics shops and various tourist spots including Songbird Safari Lodge near QEP (you should go there!). However even as I used our mastercard I was very conscious of what I had learned from the wonderful "walk the loop" session at the Mojaloop Zanzibar conference which was that using mastercard was a significant cost to these businesses and to Uganda (up to 10% if I understand correctly what the various Ugandan vendors told me during our visit).

So with the lunch bill paid by mastercard, it was "off to the ATM" where we learned the next lesson about the Uganda monetary system and that is , when you need cash you need a "lot" of individual notes and these notes are very unwieldy / bulky to cart around on you. It demonstrated very quickly a significant reason why mobile money was both popular and important for Uganda i.e. it lessened significantly the "amount" of cash you needed to carry.

Broad eco-system observations and MTN costs

Overall from our friends in Kampala we learned that the Uganda economy worked very much off of both mobile money payments and cash, with the current limitations of mobile money ensuring that cash still dominates. Our friends would pay their mobile phone airtime and data using with mobile money and I believe rent and a variety of other services , but when they ordered pizza the only choice was to pay the delivery driver with cash. Certainly my biggest surprise here was not having to use cash, rather getting offered home delivery pizza in Kampala !

One thing that became obvious very quickly is friends helping each other out with small loans, so that instant mobile payments from one person to another are very common and it turns out cost nothing. The costs to the user are largely incurred when cash is withdrawn from the wallet (see photo below detailing costs). Indeed it appears that the mobile money companies themselves commonly allow small short-term loans to their customers although there is of course a cost to this.

You can see from the photo below detailing MTN mobile money costs that transfers and deposits are free but that withdrawals incur charges and tax. The structure of the charges appears designed to promote adoption and use of the service and that makes a lot of sense. Still it made me wonder what the scale and structure of the charges might become in the future when uptake is greater, which also implies that Mojaloop could have an important role in ensuring competition between vendors and keeping prices and charges down medium and long term.

Oh I should point out that Jill was wonderfully patient and even at times interested in my many payment and money related questions of our friends, of serving staff , small business owners we encountered and especially our wonderful driver (and new friend) for the week Cyrus.

TBC : In part #2 I plan to write about our road trip to Kibogo and QEP including our brush with the Ugandan police that involves a fascinating real-world mobile-money story.

Simplify Mojaloop Deployment

Tom — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 13:20:13 +0000

Hey folks, during the Mojaloop Bootcamp at ccHub on Monday, @simeonoriko issued a challenge to take mini-loop and make it even easier to deploy. I think he offered a nice prize for doing so. This post is to give you a head-start on winning that prize/swag.

So it should be possible to deploy a kubernetes engine such as rancher k3s into Ubuntu 20 or 22 and then deploy Mojaloop the running kubernetes engine from a command similar to how k3s itself is installed .

So take a look at https://k3s.io where it shows how to install k3s :

curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh -

What can be done is to apply this to approach making use of the mini-loop scripts install scripts in https://github.com/tdaly61/mini-loop

You can find an open source skeleton of this approach available from the MIT-licensed script from glide at https://github.com/Masterminds/glide.sh/blob/master/get

So get going .... folks !