AdaPools.io - AI monitoring now in place on all nodes, 24/7/365

English General Discussions
1

We’ve spent the past two weeks evaluating and testing a variety of automated server monitoring systems to run on all our global SL servers for AdaPools.io. This aspect is a critical part of ensuring that as a global pool, we never miss a slot election and thus reward for our members.

After running the two finalist via live trial this week, we’ve selected our winner, signed a deployment contract, and it’s now running live on the Singapore/Frankfurt/Amsterdam smart nodes (Chicago is being used for R&D right now).

AdaPools-AI-monitoring-main
AdaPools-AI-monitoring-main.jpg1387×859 134 KB

What is really neat about the system and the reason it won, is that it uses machine learning/AI to evaluate the ‘normal’ parameters for the entire system (CPU, memory, network io, etc), brings in it’s own data from running on lots of other same OS servers, and then uses that to understand what is normal and intelligently monitor for when a problem is brewing and of course alert if one is happening - it already comes with a whole set of interdependent things to watch.
All the other systems we evaluated monitor things but you have to set arbitrary/dumb thresholds for alerts (i.e. CPU% > 80%), when in fact many things need to be looked at to understand if this is a problem or simply a short term change such as an automated backup being run, etc.

This system also solves the ‘how can we auto-monitor each and every node, 24/7/365’ and also see everything at a glance on the human side.

There are separate screens for each server, and more screens that show how the machine learning AI portion is viewing things.
Today and Monday we’ll be adding in the custom code to specifically monitor the Cardano SL node itself on each server as a process, currently the AI is just setup to monitor the entire server as a whole.

As a bonus, in talking with the different vendors, I’ve had a great chance to evangelize ADA. In every case it usually goes from ‘we are evaluating monitoring systems for our global server network’ to ‘its for a cryptocurrency pool’ to Ada and all the reasons we are doing this (Gen 1 BTC vs Gen 3 Ada, etc). Anyway, fun conversations and helps to spread awareness and interest in Cardano/Ada b/c people are interested in learning about what we are doing and why.

We’re adding a blog to the site to document our progress on the global pool network here - http://adapools.io

We’ll have more updates and screenshots as we continue to perfect the infrastructure for staking and await the Shelley release.

19 Likes
2

This looks like an amazing setup with a considerable amount of money invested. I see there is information about hardware, software but i don’t see much color on the folks who are actually running it. Could you please provide the community more transparency in this area?

1 Like
3

Thanks for the feedback Saline09!
Yes, working on the new ‘About Us’ page on the site which will have exactly that info about myself and the other sys admins involved.
As a short answer here - I have been a Software Dev Engineer (Programmer), Software Test Engineer, and Program Manager at Microsoft. A Senior Software Architect at X10 Wireless, and founded a company after that (http://BetterThanDiamond.com) involved in manufacturing of lab grown gems with global sales and formerly a Inc5000 fastest growing index member.
From overseeing our website and global message boards, I have 14+ years of running a mission critical server since we sell globally and making the server fast and secure 24/7/365 was a top priority…we’ve had all kinds of experience combatting hacking, DDos attacks, malware, etc. from that.
That experience and having already configured our company server with the best server tech is what has let us jump into the upcoming Cardano pooling with a bit of a head start in terms of global server capability and experience.
That’s kind of a quick answer but we’ll have more info on the site under the About Us menu shortly - http://AdaPools.io
Also, I’ve setup an FB group based on other feedback about having a more accessible social channel for members and potential members besides the site itself.
Hope that helps for now and thanks again for the feedback!

1 Like
4

This looks great. Is february a confirmed date for proof of stake mining with cardano?

5

Hi Less - Thank you for the response. It totally helps and I’m down to participate. I don’t have FB and I’m not likely to get one. Is there a chance you will have a “telegram” channel?

Murph

6

Hello MegaWind,

I have been following the Staking post on here and Reddit for the past few weeks. I am relevantly new to the whole Crypto coin community. I only started last August but I have been having a great time getting up to speed with the who Blockchain technology. I think it is brilliant!

With that said, I know Cardano is not the first to do POS for mining new coins and helping confirm transactions but I think the concept is very creative. I also like how a small percentage of trading fee’s goes into a pool of funds for ADA in general. I could not understand how or why this would be useful until I saw DASH sponsor an MMA fighter for the next UFC fight. Then I thought that was an awesome way of advertising for DASH and all Crypto currencies. Nice job DASH.

What I am saying is I am new. The more I learn the more I have been impressed with the creativity and the math/science behind all of Crypto and how much thought has gone into Cardano (ADA) or what I believe is Blockchain 3.0.

I have acquired an amount of ADA coins which feels like a lot to me. It is higher then some of my friends and much lower then a lot of people I have read about. So this to me is a big deal and I can understand how it would be meaningless to others.

I am truly impressed by the amount of work you have put into this project for the past few weeks. That sounds like a big deal from reading all you have done. I understand POW requires that amount of HW but does POS require the amount you are advertising? I am sure the answer is yes but I thought this was supposed to be more like a Torrent.

Here is my question. I know they published the percentages of how much you should make back from Staking your coins. It is a bit over 9% the first two years. If I stake my coins with you, do you know how much your overhead fees would bee? Have you figured out how much of the 9% I would get from staking my coins with your team? Any chance we can get a % you are shooting for? Maybe this has already been figured out with other POS Crypto. I have not had time to research that much.

Again, I am still learning but this is the question I can’t seem to find an easy answer for. I even saw in Charles video that he wants to talk to the teams setting up what teams like you are setting up. But I am curious what your expectations will be which will lead to me better understanding a real % return back. Also, any way you can confirm this number?

Again, I have been very impressed what you have put together so far. Nice job.

Thank you for any information.

-Slick

1 Like
7

I am also curious about this pool project - can we know if megawind is an adaholder? Or just wants to offer his infrastructure?

The 9 % ROI is the unofficial number we have - most likeley as the tx nr will grow - so will be the tx fee colected (that will also be distributed to stakeholders)

8

Hi Eystein,
Thanks for the feedback!
Re: schedule - from Charles statements, staking pools will be vetted in February but no definitive date yet for live staking atm.
From some indirect references, I believe that live staking should start in 2Q, meaning April/May/June, but I haven’t seen any definitive date. I suspect it will be nailed down more after Feb and some testing with the pools, along with how well things progress with Shelley. The roadmap has staking at 75% complete and consensus incentives at 45% complete so it’s certainly getting closer.
Hope you are doing well!

9

Hi Saline/Murph,
Yes re: telegram channel. Hope to have one by late this week. Not sure how many people will use it vs FB, but lets find out!
Best regards,
Less

10

Live Staking will start (most likely) early q2!

11

it’s 2018 :slight_smile: multichannel engagement baby!

1 Like
12

Hi Slick,
Awesome, really happy to see you getting up to speed with Blockchain tech and happy you have acquired a solid Ada stake! And thanks for the kind words on our AdaPools.io project!

Re: Dash and marketing - they have done a good job, esp. with Amanda Johnson’s work. I am happy to see that Ada has 25% of the upcoming staking rewards going back into fund more dev and marketing (as voted on by holders) to help further the whole Cardano ecosystem.

Re: POW hardware vs POS hardware - the servers we have setup now are complete overkill for daily smart node SL operations as far as I can tell at this point. However, they are not overkill for building the nodes from source, which actually requires a reasonable amount of power. And we always want to have a substantial buffer in place to ensure plenty of reserve for growth and of course, the Shelley upgrade hasn’t rolled out yet and may require additional resources over what is needed now.

Re: percentages rewards and staking and pool fees - I’ve seen the 9% number mentioned but there’s been no confirmation on that officially yet. I think we’ll just have to wait and see how much it will be. In Ethereum, I’ve seen numbers from 5% to 15% being mentioned when they move to Proof of Stake as a comparison.
Ultimately though we’ll just have to wait and see and I’m sure we’ll know more over the next month or two.

Also, imo and from my experience mining Ethererum - the real reward isn’t the x% you make from staking or mining. Rather, it’s helping the project to succeed by strengthening the network (mining in Ethereum, and pools/staking with top tier servers in Ada) and as the project as a whole succeeds, then all the additional Ada you accumulate from the rewards pays off via appreciation.
I was mining Ethereum when it was $12 - $25/coin, now it’s at $1000+/coin. I think Ada is superior tech wise to Ethereum and that’s why I’m involved both financially and contributing with the AdaPools project.

I’m sure we’ll all know a lot more about the rewards from staking in the next month or so. We’ll post on our site and the FB/telegram as soon as we have more info on both rewards and pool fees, etc.

Thanks again for the feedback!

2 Likes
13

Hi Adafans!
Great question and I meant to cover it earlier but yes I am a six figure Adaholder, and the AdaPools.io project is in many ways my contribution to furthering the Ada ecosystem with a top tier global network for pooling.
And definitely my Ada will be staked in AdaPools, b/c nothing beats putting your own money where your mouth is lol. But I am a big believer in win/win via aligned incentives.
After Charlie Lee announced he had sold all his LiteCoin, I sold all my litecoin holdings and used it to add to my Ada holdings b/c I would not want to be involved in any project where the person/people running it don’t have the same incentives as the holders.
So the AdaPools project is both aligned with furthering Ada itself by providing a top tier node network for stakeholders to pool with, and is vetted by my own holdings of Ada and staking them in the same network we are building/running for it.
Hope that helps!

1 Like
14

:kissing_heart: Fanstastic news MegaWind - We can clearly see that you have high tech skills and we need this kind of ada fans to help cardano start the POS era. I would hate to see staking era going live and people having tons of issues/questions/bugs with staking their ada in tons of shady/scammy pools!! I can bet you - there will be attempts to “fool” people to send there ada to pool, even if you only have to delegate it.
Fist goal of adafans is to unite people that are here in the long term and create a big, friendly community! I am not sure if this data is still accurate, but we might have ~ 35 k ppl that hold ada on Daeadalus - and if only 50% of circulated ada will be staked - 13 bln, its more than enough for more than 100 pools, i’ve written in a previous post that we could have even 6000 pools…

3 Likes
15

Hi - great to see you getting involved and gaining operational experience early on.

I suggest that you don’t express this particular “right” as a “voting” right - it is going to confuse people when the treasury system comes to fruition - realise that a “staking right” is a rather novel concept (to the general world) - but that is part of the fun.

16

@MegaWind

I’m curious since you thew in among other things that you can protect from DDoS… how do you do this without being Cloudflare yourself who probably has a number of interconnects that helps them sever an attack as close to the source as possible? I am aware of some of the ways how attacks can be thwarted once they reach their destination, but ultimately without being able to nip the source in the bud or as close as possible, fending off the attack at the point of attack isn’t quite that effective…

Without adequate DDoS protection on pretty much all Cardano nodes/wallets, there’s not going to be a network… Just wanna hear your thoughts on how you’ve addressed this. Thanks.

17

A lot of data-centers provide specialized services regarding DDOS protection. Cloudflare is just one of them.

18

I have 1 more principle question, has does pool mining even operate under PoS !? @Adafans_io mentioned something about send VS delegate?

Any document on the topic will be greatly appreciated 10x!

19

Its a Staking Pool - not a “mining” one :wink: https://cardanodocs.com/cardano/monetary-policy/

20

Besides my typo, still not clear how a staking pool will work. A mining pool will usually work using stratum protocol: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Stratum_mining_protocol

But how in principle this will work for PoS and dPoS cryptocurrencies? In general!