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Updated Process and Timeline - 22 April 2020

Here's an updated estimated timeline -

  • Set-up project structure - DONE

    • Timeline - DONE
    • Repo - DONE
    • Project board - DONE

  • Develop Spec - Complete by 14 Jan 2019

    • Draft Spec - DONE
    • Collect Feedback - DONE
    • Refine Spec - DONE
    • Share Final Spec for Feedback - DONE
    • Publish Final Spec - by 14 Jan 2019

  • Develop Dashboard

    • Design Dashboard - Week of 28 October
    • Collect Feedback - Weeks of 4 November & 11 November
    • Refine Dashboard - Week of 18 November

    (Note: Combining the above 3 tasks into the Prototype work below, as they're likely to happen in parallel.)

    The following work assumes a 13 Jan 2019 start date. Based on experience gained after developing and sharing the first timeline I am choosing to set a more conservative timeline estimate.

    • Confirm tooling ~ DONE
    • Design and Implement Prototype ~ DONE
      • Identify data sources - In progress
      • Build internal prototype for testing - In progress
      • Refine internal prototype
      • Release prototype for feedback
    • Collect Prototype Feedback ~ DONE
    • Refine Prototype - 2-4 weeks
    • Refine and implement prototype ~ DONE

Introduction

Chainflow has received an Interchain Foundation (ICF) grant to develop validator alerting and monitoring tools. This post will describe the motivations, goals, process and timeline of the project.

Motivation and Goals

This project will build a monitoring and performance dashboard for any validator to use.

There are a number of open source monitoring tools available. Various validators have provided early prototypes of monitoring tools. Some have started open sourcing more mature tools in the past few months too.

Larger, well capitalized validators have built custom tools. Smaller validators are strapped for time and resources.

For example, my time and attention are spent making sure the validator operates well. This leaves little time to develop tooling which would allow smaller validators to streamline operations. Streamlining operations would free attention for other activities, such as participating more actively in governance, as well as making ourselves more known to the delegator community.

A monitoring and performance dashboard, as well as alerting system, will free small validators from manual status checking. It will provide us an easier way to tweak key parameters to improve performance and security.

My hope is this will encourage more validator participation. It could also further distribute stake, as validators can become more involved in other community activities. The dashboard could provide us with a valuable marketing tool too, by making a version of it publicly available to potential delegates.

Process and Timeline

Here's the general process -

  • Develop a specification, including gathering input from validators and delegates

  • Identify the tool combinations that will be used to implement the spec

  • Implement the spec and conduct user testing

  • Refine the spec and update the tool

  • Here's the estimated timeline -

  • Set-up project structure - 1 week

    • Timeline - Week of 16 September 2019
    • Repo - Week of 16 September 2019
    • Project board - Week of 16 September 2019

  • Develop Spec - 6 weeks

    • Draft Spec - Week of 23 September 2019
    • Collect Feedback - Weeks of 23 & 30 September
    • Refine Spec - Week of 7 October
    • Share Final Spec for Feedback - Week of 14 October
    • Publish Final Spec - Week of 21 October

  • Develop Dashboard - 9 weeks

    • Design Dashboard - Week of 28 October
    • Collect Feedback - Weeks of 4 November & 11 November
    • Refine Dashboard - Week of 18 November

    (Note: Combining the above 3 tasks into the Prototype work, as they're likely to happen in parallel.)

    • Design and Implement Prototype - Week of 25 November
    • Collect Prototype Feedback - Weeks of 2 December & 9 December
    • Refine Prototype - Week of 16 December
    • Implement refined prototype - Week of 23 December

Get Involved

As this tool will be open-sourced, I want it to be useful to you. Your input is critical to making this happen. Please keep an eye out for feedback requests. Lengthy feedback cycles are included in the timeline, to encourage community participation.

Let me know what would be most valuable to you. If you'd like an existing tool you've built considered for integration, please let me know that too.

Contact me via any of the ways listed here.

P.S. - Learn more about the Chainflow Cosmos validator here, including how to delegate to it.