Since IoTeX Mainnet Rehearsal started one week ago, our 50+ Delegates have practiced bootstrapping the Mainnet from scratch, learned/implemented node best practices, and optimized their systems. We are making incredible progress every day and are close to ready to launch the Mainnet — thank you Delegates for your commitment and teamwork!
On April 4, the IoTeX Foundation hosted the third Mainnet Rehearsal event (Consensus Rehearsal #2 — slides here ) , discussing several new topics:
- Tech updates: What’s new in Testnet v0.5.0-rc8?
- “Fire drill” workshop: emergency stop, deploy hotfix, and DoS a Delegate
- Rehearsal #2 : Bootstrap a brand new chain for the second time using rc8
If you missed our earlier Mainnet Rehearsal events, take a look at our recap of both events: 1) March 27 — Consensus Rehearsal #1 ( Video & Slides ) and 2) March 29 — Orientation Call #1 ( Video & Slides ).
How is the Mainnet Rehearsal Going?
The primary goals of Mainnet Rehearsal are to 1) properly train Delegates to run consensus for IoTeX, and 2) pressure test and improve our Mainnet code. Based on this past week, we are happy to share that we have made incredible progress on both of these goals!
1) Training Delegates to run consensus: Delegates are now consistently producing blocks on the Mainnet Rehearsal pipeline (active miners below). Even more impressive is that some Delegates have taken a leadership role in helping other Delegates and exploring new ways to optimize their nodes. Some Delegates are still getting familiar, but IoTeX Foundation is working closely with all Delegates to ensure a smooth Mainnet launch.
2) Testing and improving the Mainnet code: in addition to helping Delegates sync their nodes and produce blocks, we have also pressure tested our code in various load tests (i.e., rapidly injecting transactions). Through this process, we identified some nodes that are not configured appropriately and/or running on inadequate hardware. After identifying and remedying these issues, Delegate node performance has greatly increased!
What improvements have been made to IoTeX Mainnet code?
For the past two months, the IoTeX team has launched a new code release every week. We started with Release Candidate #1 (rc1) and have evolved now to rc8 (full details here). Week after week, we have made significant enhancements in consensus performance and usability for Delegates. Here are some interesting facts to contextualize our progress:
- Syncing: Delegates can now “fast sync” >1,500 blocks per minute
- Block production: 100,000+ blocks produced by 40+ Delegates
- Load tests: 200+ finalized TPS and more intensive load tests coming soon
- Soft fork compatibility: compatible hotfixes (i.e., rc6 + rc7) can run concurrently without affecting consensus
- Monitoring: effective monitoring of all nodes status / performance — see https://t.iotex.me/chainhealth for the live results
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Usability tools: great collection of ioctl tool features and rewards distribution tool in progress
Real blocks, real transactions, real IOTX tokens!
What’s Next?
We have made incredible progress over the past week of Mainnet Rehearsal, but we still have work to do! IoTeX Foundation will host more Mainnet Rehearsal events next week (Orientation Call #2 + Consensus Rehearsal #3). Assuming these events run smoothly, the public Mainnet launch is expected during the week of April 15 ( final date coming soon )!
It is critical for the future of IoTeX that all security and performance issues are resolved before public Mainnet launch. Please be patient as we continue to work with all Delegates and put the finishing touches on our Mainnet. Thank you for supporting IoTeX — let’s build the future together!