Node Component Architecture - Periodic Table of Elements

[peterbroadhurst]

See #4 for info on why this is in Git

What is a FireFly Node?

There are three zoom levels of this question, where the architecture matters:

1. What fundamentally is a node - left on the picture
   • It is a multiple runtimes with a single unified HTTPS/Websocket API (exposed by the Core)
   • It has a private database, containing your private data, and data received from others in the network
   • It has connectivity out to other parties in the network, through runtimes (Blockchain, Shared Filesystems, Messaging etc.)
2. What are the core runtime responsibilities, and pluggable elements - right on the picture
   • The core elements of function that FireFly performs, and which runtime is responsible
   • This means some insight into core itself, and the jobs it performs, but not full code structure
   • More importantly, what the split of responsibilities is between Connectors and Infrastructure Runtimes
     • Connectors are the bridging runtimes, that know how to talk to a particular runtime.
       • They run separately to the core (like a microservice architecture of an app)
       • They can be written in any language (not just Go) - Java, TypeScript, Rust, Python, .NET etc.
       • They can use any network transport (not just HTTPS/Websockets) - GRPC, AMQP, UDP etc.
       • They connect to the core with a Golang shim - see separate Plugin Architecture discussion

         • In some special cases (like the Database) the Golang shim does not need a connector runtime

     • Infrastructure Runtimes are the core runtimes for multi-party system activities
       • Blockchain nodes - Ethereum (Hyperledger Besu, Quorum, Geth), Hyperledger Fabric, Corda etc.
       • Public strorage - IPFS etc.
       • Database - PostreSQL, CouchDB etc.
       • etc.
3. What is the code structure inside the core

• The README.md is the reference for this
• Developers contributing to FireFly, on the core, or building new plugins, need this level of detail

• A reconciliation is underway to ensure the medium-level view correlates well with this code structure