Great summary of the "survey". In the next weeks I will be looking into alternative ways of creating a cheap witness to run at home. @apshamilton already made a great start with that, but maybe there is an easier and cheaper way to do so. I will keep you updated on the results.
in general we’re highly centralized in terms of our choices of infrastructure providers
May be we should vote for witnesses who run on their own servers ? I know, people have different opinion but collectively its in the interest of entire chain.
It's hard to tell who does. I know most of the witnesses personally but sometimes am surprised. The best indication is looking at who is online and waiting during chain halts and hardforks. Those online are working on their servers or waiting for information. Those who are not are not because they don't need to; someone else will take care of it for them. Combined with that is also giving some consideration who is trying a new version (right after our hardfork there were numerous versions out) or who has different witness-set parameters in some way. If someone is just running one hands-off and doesn't quite care for working with the technology or understand it they will go the simplest route provided for them by the operator and never try anything new. All of this doesn't make someone a bad witness because they may have a highly-skilled operator. The server is still properly run and can sign blocks.
Not running own is sometimes the right choice. I remember there was a witness on Steem who was relatively well-voted but ran his node from an old laptop in his basement that kept having hardware issues. The name escapes me. Anything would've been a better alternative.
It comes down to caring about the blockchain over own wallet. Is the person doing everything, directly or indirectly, to run it properly? Good. Is the person just milking it with the shittiest hardware that can even sign a block? Bad.
That's a tough decision that everyone must make, especially considering that we really don't have that information to begin with (83% of witnesses didn't even respond). Everything's a process, and what's important to me at this stage is who is receptive to the idea of simply just getting started with the process of making the decentralization of the physical aspect of our network more accessible to interested people via the creation of good documentation on the subject and the willingness to assist in the effort. To my mind, that means that those witnesses who responded deserve my vote, and that's what I did, even though most are not on servers they actually own and have physical access to. I think what most impressed me from everyone's response was the need to be practical and to compromise while at the same time keeping in mind what the ultimate goal is - another reason for voting for them. The rest of my votes are still with the top, long term, always having been there through thick and thin, reliable witnesses, on the basic assumption that they too are practical, and compromise only as needed, and also have the same long term goal. Not an easy decision, but with the implementation of vote "decay" where old 'stale' votes made years ago by people who are no longer active on HIVE disappear, I think things could get interesting as witnesses begin to "campaign" more actively for votes, and perhaps share more information about themselves as a result. Again, I see it as a process that has only just begun, and my support has to go to those who are favorable to that process, but the decision will always be individual.
but with the implementation of vote "decay" where old 'stale' votes made years ago by people who are no longer active on HIVE disappear, I think things could get interesting as witnesses begin to "campaign" more actively for votes, and perhaps share more information about themselves as a result
I didn't reply to your first post, as I don't really like to publicly disclose many details of our infrastructure. But a very basic answer is that we use a combination of leased and owned equipment. Generally speaking, it is very easy for us to move back and forth between the two types of equipment, and we're not solely dependent on either one functioning at any given time, although there could be some temporary service interruption during swap overs.
Okay, if getting everyone setup at home is too stretched an idea at the present, how about helping everyone (that wants to) get setup on a small ‘local’ data center.
From the hardware perspective, that is not an easy thing to do. Especially for people who have next-to-no knowledge about how colocation and hardware works. There isn't much that one can do to "document" enough information about how to get a colocation, specifications, pricing etc. Since it would vary from Location A to Location B, even in the same city.
Unfortunately, as other people said (on the other post) it is impossible to expect people to have their own machines right next to them and run a full node or a regular witness node. The next best thing, which is what we have at the moment, is to have nodes in various different server providers in various different countries. Again, some providers like Privex provide relatively cheap ways of obtaining a witness node in various countries. (or a full node capable server)
Sorry? As far as my knowledge in English goes, what you have described there is "colocation" basically having people rent a designated amount of space from a data center and store their own servers in the data center, as opposed to renting from them directly. I wanted to explain that it is not as easy as it sounds and there are a lot of variables involved.
I run my main node on a datacenter (to achieve the best performance and availability) but also a backup witness on the machine I own, which I can enable at any time if necessary.
Great summary of the "survey". In the next weeks I will be looking into alternative ways of creating a cheap witness to run at home. @apshamilton already made a great start with that, but maybe there is an easier and cheaper way to do so. I will keep you updated on the results.
Sounds like a plan! And thanks for that feedback. Always appreciated!
May be we should vote for witnesses who run on their own servers ? I know, people have different opinion but collectively its in the interest of entire chain.
It's hard to tell who does. I know most of the witnesses personally but sometimes am surprised. The best indication is looking at who is online and waiting during chain halts and hardforks. Those online are working on their servers or waiting for information. Those who are not are not because they don't need to; someone else will take care of it for them. Combined with that is also giving some consideration who is trying a new version (right after our hardfork there were numerous versions out) or who has different witness-set parameters in some way. If someone is just running one hands-off and doesn't quite care for working with the technology or understand it they will go the simplest route provided for them by the operator and never try anything new. All of this doesn't make someone a bad witness because they may have a highly-skilled operator. The server is still properly run and can sign blocks.
Not running own is sometimes the right choice. I remember there was a witness on Steem who was relatively well-voted but ran his node from an old laptop in his basement that kept having hardware issues. The name escapes me. Anything would've been a better alternative.
It comes down to caring about the blockchain over own wallet. Is the person doing everything, directly or indirectly, to run it properly? Good. Is the person just milking it with the shittiest hardware that can even sign a block? Bad.
That's a tough decision that everyone must make, especially considering that we really don't have that information to begin with (83% of witnesses didn't even respond). Everything's a process, and what's important to me at this stage is who is receptive to the idea of simply just getting started with the process of making the decentralization of the physical aspect of our network more accessible to interested people via the creation of good documentation on the subject and the willingness to assist in the effort. To my mind, that means that those witnesses who responded deserve my vote, and that's what I did, even though most are not on servers they actually own and have physical access to. I think what most impressed me from everyone's response was the need to be practical and to compromise while at the same time keeping in mind what the ultimate goal is - another reason for voting for them. The rest of my votes are still with the top, long term, always having been there through thick and thin, reliable witnesses, on the basic assumption that they too are practical, and compromise only as needed, and also have the same long term goal. Not an easy decision, but with the implementation of vote "decay" where old 'stale' votes made years ago by people who are no longer active on HIVE disappear, I think things could get interesting as witnesses begin to "campaign" more actively for votes, and perhaps share more information about themselves as a result. Again, I see it as a process that has only just begun, and my support has to go to those who are favorable to that process, but the decision will always be individual.
Hope this long drawn out answer helps.
When this is going to happen ?
My understanding is that it's on the slate and imminent.
I didn't reply to your first post, as I don't really like to publicly disclose many details of our infrastructure. But a very basic answer is that we use a combination of leased and owned equipment. Generally speaking, it is very easy for us to move back and forth between the two types of equipment, and we're not solely dependent on either one functioning at any given time, although there could be some temporary service interruption during swap overs.
That's a killer answer to the question!
Didn't necessarily expect you to necessarily have to answer, but I'm glad you took the time to share that. Good answer.
From the hardware perspective, that is not an easy thing to do. Especially for people who have next-to-no knowledge about how colocation and hardware works. There isn't much that one can do to "document" enough information about how to get a colocation, specifications, pricing etc. Since it would vary from Location A to Location B, even in the same city.
Unfortunately, as other people said (on the other post) it is impossible to expect people to have their own machines right next to them and run a full node or a regular witness node. The next best thing, which is what we have at the moment, is to have nodes in various different server providers in various different countries. Again, some providers like Privex provide relatively cheap ways of obtaining a witness node in various countries. (or a full node capable server)
You've misunderstood what you've quoted (to not say the entire write-up 🙁 ).
Sorry? As far as my knowledge in English goes, what you have described there is "colocation" basically having people rent a designated amount of space from a data center and store their own servers in the data center, as opposed to renting from them directly. I wanted to explain that it is not as easy as it sounds and there are a lot of variables involved.
He he 'PALs'. That was a good one 😝
Totally unintended. 😳 I've changed it to 'buddies'.
I run my main node on a datacenter (to achieve the best performance and availability) but also a backup witness on the machine I own, which I can enable at any time if necessary.