MIRA: Soft Roll-Out Begins!
We are excited to announce that we have begun the soft roll-out for MIRA. MIRA is a cutting-edge scaling solution that we developed for Steem and stands for Multi Index RocksDB Adapter. It leverages state-of-the-art database technology developed by Facebook to dramatically reduce the cost of running the Steem blockchain by allowing nodes to store almost all necessary data on low cost (commodity) hardware instead of in RAM without degrading performance.
If you’d like to learn more about MIRA, be sure to check out the post being released alongside this announcement by @vandeberg, our senior blockchain developer. That post includes both audio and video versions of Episode 3 of The Steemit Podcast in which @vandeberg explores what MIRA is and why it is so important to Steem, and the blockchain world as a whole. You can also find both audio and video versions of the podcast at the bottom of this post.
Soft Roll-Out
With MIRA we are following the same strategy we employed when rolling out Hivemind and steemitwallet.com. Instead of simply releasing the software into production and hoping it doesn’t break, we gradually introduce the software into our production environment for limited periods of time. After these tests, we return to our previous environment, analyze the data, make whatever adjustments are necessary and then plan the next tests.
We have actually performed such tests multiple times over the past month, but this week we expect to be running steemit.com almost entirely on MIRA! Because we’ve already made numerous improvements based on our past tests, we don’t expect many issues, but if you do come across bugs that you believe might be related to MIRA, please let us know in the comments section below. As this is a soft roll-out, we will be prepared at all times to immediately switch back to our previous production environment so that we can ensure uninterrupted use of steemit.com.
The REAL Scaling Challenge
That means that if you are using a Steem application that uses Steemit’s nodes (steemit.com and most other Steem apps do) then you are accessing a blockchain which is now being stored on commodity-hardware! This is the scaling challenge that no one else is talking about because no other blockchain has applications with as much real-time engagement and traffic as Steem. Other high-performance blockchain protocols accomplish their speed by storing their blockchain database in RAM. RAM is incredibly expensive and unlike commodity-hardware, its price is not decreasing at an exponential rate. That's why the cost of building apps on those blockchains costs around $55,000 for every 1,000 users onboarded!
RAM & nVME Reductions
Thanks to MIRA, we will likely be able to reduce the amount of RAM being used in our Steem node by 50% and the nVME usage by 100%! Instead of using nVMEs, we can switch entirely to generic network backed SSDs. This should reduce the costs of running a node to a fraction of what it used to be. Best of all, this dramatic improvement didn’t even require a hardfork.
It is our hope that some time next week MIRA will be running live in production full time. Soon after that we plan to have a public release available so that every Steem node operator can benefit from the dramatic cost reductions that result from MIRA. This will not only reduce the cost of running the Steem network across the board, it will lower the barriers to entry for anyone who wants to develop an app on Steem or even compete to become a Witness (a/k/a block producer). That means Steem should also become even more decentralized than it already is.
Smart Media Tokens
Once we have released MIRA to the public, our blockchain team will be shifting their attention entirely to completing the development of the Smart Media Tokens protocol which will empower any app developer to launch their very own cryptocurrency with 3-second fee-less transfers and our revolutionary proof-of-brain algorithm which leverages the wisdom-of-the-crowd to autonomously reward engagement. They have already been strategizing about this project and we look forward to sharing more details about their plan of attack.
The Steemit Team
Ep. 3 of The Steemit Podcast: MIRA Interview with Senior Blockchain Engineer @vandeberg
Subscribe to The Steemit Podcast on your favorite podcasting app like Spotify or iTunes.
Do you have an up to date comparison of full node replay with and without Mira?
I'm going to show it in Steem Pressure series.
Previous results were far from ideal, but a lot changed in the meantime. We will see.
MIRA performs amazing when the node is live, but it less than optimal when reindexing. We are working on a hybrid approach that will allow reindexing fully in memory for costly indices which will then be transferred to RocksDB after the reindex is finished. This will allow node operators the freedom of faster replay at the cost of more expensive hardware, or reindexing on cheaper hardware over a longer period of time.
How about creating snapshots of indexed checkpoints? Load them directly into RocksDB instead of having to reindex them every time.
We would like to do that as well, but sometimes snapshotting is not enough. We have had major security fixes in the past that could only be fixed via reindexing. There are different reasons to reindex. Getting a node up for the first time is the most common and makes sense to load from a snapshot. But in the case of a security vulnerability or a chain halt that requires a reindex to fix, we may not be able to wait a longer time to reindex. We realize that there is not a "one size fits all" solution, which is why we are looking at the hybrid approach and are interested in snapshotting.
we would have to trust snapshot party.. and thats not decentralized
[-]ackza (70) · yesterday
Yes ytou can fork steem but not like this, not from people like you :D ENjoythe downvote, its my little messasge from @themarkymark
https://steemit.com/steemit/@pagandance/hard-forking-steemit-into-steemit-and-steemit-2-0
did you tell ackza to downvote my post?
:-)
sir @ themarkymark your question is outstanding . i think sir he have . am i right sir@steemitblog?
Fuck yeah! This is the kind of news we've been waiting on. Good to see you've got some momentum behind you and have stuff cooking in the development chambers. Exciting as hell!
Took the words right out of my mouth.
WOOOT! One small step for Steem, one giant leap for Steemians.
Soon we'll be bunny hopping on the moon!
hahaha you guys are funny lol :D this is incredible, especially now. preparing for a massive slingshot once everything rolls out. hehe
Slingshot how high though? And at what price can we be sustained st realistically ?
Hop hop hop!
Surely, that's why we say "STEEM HAS A FUTURE"
Πενία τέχνας κατεργάζεται
Hot dawg!! Possibly the biggest achievement yet and a poke in the eye for the Steemit can't scale brigade.
I actually believe SMTs are coming now! :0)
IF meesterboom believes it..OMG! It's happening. G E T H Y PE?!
I'm on the train! Full Steem ahead!! :0D
Such great news!
Abso-flamin-lutely!
This
Do you have an updated roadmap?
here you go
Plan A
Plan B
You have received a negative vote.
Wonderful.
Woohoo! Can't wait for SMTs to roll out next!
Great to see the team delivering on some important targets. It's nice to get these updates that we can spread to other media's and show the development happening with the chain. Keep pushing for more and keep people updated so that we can spread the positivity.
This is the kind of update that the steemians have been waiting for, well done Steemit Inc. You just gave us a boost on oir confidence towards Steem.
Steem to the moon!