Community Update 118

Owned by Rao Bhamidipati
Last updated: May 06, 2020

General

  • Release
    • Node version 0.9.24 is the current release on observer nodes - second update post-mainnet - Housekeeping changes and meeting requirements of exchanges for reporting state and transaction history RNode-0.9.24 release plan
    • RNode 0.9.24 changes impact only the observer/read only node. We've set up an 'exchanges only' read only node for exclusive use by the exchanges.
    • Testnet is currently running rnode version 0.9.25. Will soon update main net with 0.9.25 version if everything works fine.  0.9.25 has both observer/read only changes as well as some bug fixes and improvements to block store that also improve the validator nodes.

    • Mainnet is running RNode-0.9.23lts for validators - this has a couple of patches beyond the 0.9.23. We're also trying out 0.9.25 on the mainnet oberver nodes. Sequence of updates is testnet to mainnet observers and then main net validators if applicable. 

    • Current philosophy is to minimize updates/disruptions to validator nodes while enabling improved observer node functionality.
    • Focus is to make sure that the network can handle the anticipated volume from the exchanges and that exchanges can have responsive monitoring and customer service.
  • Sprint 51 in progress
    • Main Focus: hardening the mainnet, improve performance, make usability improvements including configuration, Work on Last Finalized State, API improvements for functionality needed by exchanges.
    • 0.9.23lts
    • Current Work In Progress 
      • Initial performance improvements in 'transaction history' functionality of 0.9.24 completed - will be released in 0.9.25.  Tomislav described this last week.
      • Fixing an issue in grpc delays and connection time outs by enabling a grpc proxy on each node. This will also give us more information and logs about the traffic seen by each node, helping with debugging issues. 
      • Addressing discovered bugs
      • Ongoing - Improvements to last finalized state initial draft PR issued https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2913 and https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2926 but quite a bit of work involved still. Significant progress, some of which will be released in 0.9.25. The PR and the branch are structured so that multiple people can collaborate/ work on different parts of the feature at the same time. The scope of this work enables (a) faster catchup by new nodes - you can start from the last finalized state - this is a differentiator for RChain (b) offloading older data and differentiated storage and retrieval strategies for the same (c) allows for a leaner / less bloated node. Tomislav continuing to work and test this.  Nutzipper and Will beginning to help to accelerate delivery. Having to pick between refactoring and work-arounds in various parts. This change touches most parts of the codebase. Trying to get a more modular and future-beneficial approach.
      • Completed - node.js API for exchanges that need it.   Adding changes or new functionality as we discover how the exchange is using it.
      • Requesting exchanges to generate transactions in a more load distributed fashion (optimized from their perspective, without a centralized service for this) 
      • Ongoing - Gurinder is augmenting and rationalizing monitoring of mainnet and other nets, including distributing monitoring over multiple cloud providers, for resilience and to meet exchange needs
      • Continuing documentation work -  inventory, requirements, gaps, and a way to address them. Initially starting with documentation for exchanges on best practices to get started and using the API and tools.
      • Tuesday TeachOuts by Tomislav (Tuesday 10 AM Eastern) in Jimscarver's zoom room https://zoom.us/j/6853551826 
    • Current Backlog (partial)
      • Improve merging in system deploys
      • Improve Triemerge
      • Improve multi-parent Casper enablement
      • Implement sharding capabilities
      • Improve logging to be able to learn what API calls are being used, so they can be related to resource use and performance etc
      • Rholang 1.1 to improve syntax and user experience / learning curve
  • Tech-Governance meetings on Thursdays 10 AM Eastern, 7 Am Pacific 

Mercury requirements and acceptance criteria

Blockers to Mainnet

  • NA

Risks to code completion for Mercury

  •  

Developer website

Date