Hi all,
Have been working on the testnet on and off for most of January and now have launched the new pool, with a false start when someone else registered a pool with the same ticker name a few hours after I registered mine. Quite annoying but at least I got to go through the deregistering process.
Got into ADA back in 2017 but lost interest after the whole market crash. Seriously wish I didn’t walk away but had to make a living.
The last year working on AWS servers, creating scalable solutions for clients from application to server infrastructure has really helped out when setting up this pool.
Currently enjoying connecting with people around the community on here and on Twitter.
Still hating Facebook.
Happy with the pool setup on 2 AWS instances both based in Sydney. Over time I’ll set up another relay in a different location and will be experimenting with a Raspberry Pi. Have been wanting a good reason to get one. Also happy with the website: https://cardanode.com.au
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Lol, thanks for the like @Alexd1985. Wasn’t expecting anyone to read the post.
So after a month of running the stake pool, unfortunately, no blocks, just have to be patient there and work on the marketing side of things.
In terms of setup though, I found the AWS setup to be a little unreliable. I had various issues with resource usage and costs ballooning with bandwidth usage. I had to cut ties with AWS.
Chatting to @caseygibson I moved to a mix of other cloud providers here in Australia and also launched some bare-metal servers using Raspberry Pis.
I feel this setup is far more distributed, and mixed rather than putting all my eggs in one basket and with one cloud provider.
Cheers to a more distributed network in Australia.
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It’s great to hear that you got a baremetal in the mix. You’re eligible to register here: https://cardanobaremetal.com
I’m relatively new here too. I currently have my nodes hosted on AWS. Did you do reserved instances or on-demand? Reserved Instances helped me cut costs down 60-70% reserving for 3 years. First month, so I’m not sure how other costs will play out haha
Anyway, welcome to the Cardano Stake Pool ecosystem!
Ha, thanks. I’ve added myself on there. I see you’re there too.
I don’t see the point of these alliances other than banding with others that think the same way. Am I right or is there another point to alliances?
Hey @DavidNC
I went for on-demand instances to test out the setup on Mainnet. Testnet was fine but Mainnet is where I had issues.
- Memory spikes would crash relays
- I had what looked like DDoS attacks on my node with other AWS servers trying to connect to it. At times I had over 500 connections to my node. That would have contributed to the memory spikes. Firewall rules, security profile, UFW, Fail2Ban, disabling ping etc didn’t stop it. Turning off the instance and terminating it did.
- I set up the relay behind a load balancer to hide the IP address and to address the changing IP addresses behind the stop/starting an instance. That lead to a huge bandwidth bill as ALB bandwidth is an added extra. I never noticed it for websites that we host as the bandwidth wasn’t that high since we use a lot of CDNs. So don’t use a load balancer unless you have deep pockets to pay for the bandwidth.
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For me it’s about bringing awareness. Ideally the network should be setup to be as bulletproof as possible. Baremetal is a great way to make sure of it.
That’s why I like to have servers across different hosts (in case the account gets closed for whatever reason), and in different setups. I’m running a 12 core, 128GB RAM server at home which would be able to take a lot of network abuse (as long as the NBN holds up :P).
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Sorry to hear that you had so much issues on AWS. Load Balancers bills rack up huge so I can understand how that wasn’t worth it in the end.
I hope bare metal works out better for you!
Well, I’m thinking about running a passive node on AWS in Sydney but I think there are other providers in Australia that provide better options.
LOL. That NBN is the weakest link in your setup there. I’ve got fibre to the building but still have been syncing this node since Tuesday morning, just over 48 hours now. That’s the downside.
I’ve just got cooling issues now being on the Gold Coast. Oh and corrosion problems from salty sea breezes.
NBN has surprisingly been rock solid for me. I’m on HFC so it’s actually really reliable.
Here’s a tip; You can copy (rsync) the cardano folder to your new setup. The slowest point is rebuilding the chain, not so much the internet speed. So copying the folder will be a lot quicker. You may want to stop the node though, zip it and then copy so that you know it’s 100% fine. Then start up the node you copied from.
yeh I wish I did that in the first place. I didn’t think it would take this long. It just finished.
I create images on cloud providers and store that away every now and then so I can restore to a decent point. I’ll remember that for next time. Thanks @caseygibson
There could be, I think GCP might be cheaper and they give you $300 credit (USD for me) to use over 3 months for first-timers. I only know Azure is really expensive haha and I’m more of an AWS guy with certifications for the platform.
IMO, AWS is only cheap when you reserve instances for the larger tiers or use their free tier (t2/t3.micro). But the reserved can still run really expensive for some people and their budgets. If you have a good/stable connection (maybe fiber), I would consider doing a home build pool to save on costs.
Yeh. It’s worth experimenting and see what performs best and most cost effective. Especially since I’m not producing any blocks.
The relay at home is all set now and the connection is good. Just the heat and sea breeze I have to worry about now.
See how we are in a months time. If the Pis fail, I’ll turn them into arcade machines.
A little update after two and a half months or so since launch.
We’ve hit a couple of milestones that I’m quite happy and proud about.
- The pool is now a team. 4 of us have banded together to increase pledge and combine our efforts for the success of the pool and grow out ADA stacks.
- I’ve started a podcast - Learn Cardano Podcast
- I’m so much better at producing videos for YouTube now. Not perfect but each one gets better and better.
- The pool has grown from 26,500 ADA to 270,000 ADA
- The pool produced two blocks with a high level of luck 500%.
- We negotiated with a delegate and how now grown the pool owner list to 5 and increased the pool to 5,900,000 ADA
- Got a rap made for the podcast
- Got selected by IOG for this round of delegation cycle. We won’t squander this opportunity. This will push the pool to 9,100,000 ADA.
I’d like to thank my daily source of inspiration:
I only made it to #1 - horrible idea. You know you can delegate? You’ll make more money and not be wasting your stake and your delegate’s stake with a pools that isn’t going to make enough blocks to pay for itself. This is genuine financial advice, you should not be running a pool. Just delegate.
Source: Reddit - Dive into anything
Thanks for all the support from other community members and IOG. It’s been a great ride so far.