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tl;dr - Service Catalog might ahve been a redundant concept after all… Was it just the hobby-horse of large integration-happy stakeholders?
I’ve always been sort of confused by the concept of the Service Catalog – so much so I’ve posted about it before to get a feel for public consensus.
For those who don’t know what service catalog was – here’s a great post from WeaveWorks on it
People have put hard work into supporting this concept, chairing the SIG, and pushing it forward, but I have to say that I don’t think I ever squared why it was necessary in a world with operators present.
Ever since I first saw it I thought it was a bad idea/duplication of the operator pattern in general. I must have been feeling particularly conspiratorial those days because it seemed like an enterprise roadmap “plant”. Nevertheless, smart people worked on it, and I can’t help but think that it was always a bit of an over-complicated and over-engineered. This is the exact kind of thing that sounds good in a conference room – I can just HEAR it being pitched.
Yeah I guess I should have mentioned that earlier. What spawned this whole post was reading through changelogs and release blogs and wondering “whatever happened to Service Catalog?” I was unable to find the usual docs page – they disappeared suddenly from the with no mention in the Changelogs/releases as far as I saw:
One of the first things that tipped me off was https://svc-cat.io which was linked in some places being no longer protected by HTTPS (!).
Looks like Microsoft also likes to re-use certificates for lots of dynamic properties:
Websites prove their identity via certificates. Firefox Developer Edition does not trust this site because it uses a certificate that is not valid for svc-cat.io. The certificate is only valid for the following names: *.vo.msecnd.net, *.cmsresources.windowsphone-int.com, *.ads2.msads.net, *.aspnetcdn.com, *.cmsresources.windowsphone.com, *.microsoft-sbs-domains.com, ajax.microsoft.com, *.dev.skype.com, *.azureedge.net, *.wpc.azureedge.net, *.wac.azureedge.net, *.adn.azureedge.net, *.fms.azureedge.net, *.azurecomcdn.net, *.cdn.skype.net, *.cdn.skype.com, *.streaming.media-test.windows-int.net, *.streaming.mediaservices.windows.net, *.secure.skypeassets.com, *.secure.skypeassets.net, *.yammer.com, *.azureedge-test.net, cdnads.msads.net, cdn-resources.windowsphone.com, cdn-resources-beta.windowsphone.com, ecnads1.msn.com, iecvlist.microsoft.com, images-cms-pn.windowsphone-int.com, images-cms-tst.windowsphone-int.com, lumiahelptipscdn.microsoft.com, lumiahelptipscdnqa.microsoft.com, montage.msn.com, mscrl.microsoft.com, r20swj13mr.microsoft.com, lumiahelptipsmscdn.microsoft.com, lumiahelptipsmscdnqa.microsoft.com, *.origin.mediaservices.windows.net, download.sysinternals.com, amp.azure.net, rt.ms-studiosmedia.com, gtm.ms-studiosmedia.com, software-download.microsoft.com, datafactory.azure.com, *.aisvc.visualstudio.com, *.cdn.powerbi.com, downloads.subscriptionsint.tfsallin.net, download.my.visualstudio.com, dist.asp.net, dxtembed.powerbi.com, msitembed.powerbi.com, embed.powerbi.com, *.ec.azureedge.net, *.wpc.ec.azureedge.net, *.wac.ec.azureedge.net, *.adn.ec.azureedge.net, *.fms.ec.azureedge.net, *.cdn.powerappscdn.net, stream.microsoft.com, *.applicationinsights.io, *.applicationinsights.net, cdn.vsassets.io, cdnppe.vsassets.io, *.cortanaanalytics.com, do.skype.com, software-download.office.microsoft.com, *.gallerycdn.vsassets.io, *.gallerycdnppe.vsassets.io, download.learningdownloadcenter.microsoft.com, global.asazure.windows.net, cdn.wallet.microsoft-ppe.com, cdn.wallet.microsoft.com, www.videobreakdown.com, *.gallerycdntest.vsassets.io, software-download.coem.microsoft.com, natick.research.microsoft.com, agavecdn.o365weve-dev.com, agavecdn.o365weve-ppe.com, agavecdn.o365weve.com, download.visualstudio.com, *.Applicationinsights.microsoft.com, *.sfbassets.com, *.sfbassets.net, *.origin.mediaservices.windows-int.net, download.mono-project.com, *.mp.microsoft.com, download.visualstudio.microsoft.com, vi.microsoft.com, *.streaming.media.azure-test.net, *.streaming.media.azure.net, cdn.botframework.com, cdn.cloudappsecurity.com, ec-cert-deploy-prod-default.cdn.azure.net
I don’t know if that’s best practice but that’s neither here nor there I guess, but I sure was surprised to see this many very unrelated domains under one cert!
The Service Catalog (service-catalog) repo has moved to kubernetes-retired.
And this is the sadder part, sometimes you forget the people who put in hard work and drove consensus around an idea – I found the dissolution message regarding SIG Service Catalog by Bob Illen, and it looks like there’s been no activity in the Google Group since April 2022.
Digging a bit more, it looks like this became a somewhat sure thing when Jonathan ran out of time to devote to the project in November 2021.
Well, I can’t say I’m sad to see it go, but I do hope the people who invested time and effort into SIG Serivce Catalog are finding their needs met (with operators, I assume!) and are doing well these days.
I can’t help feeling like I just missed this being announced somewhere (other than the Google Group), but I guess the internet will tell me, wth great fury, if I have.
“All aboard the operator hype train” to the rest of the corporate Kubernetes landscape!