A blockchain infrastructure is a set of resources and an underlying framework that power a network. It is what makes a blockchain secure, decentralized, and scalable. However, it is challenging to achieve the right balance, often creating a tradeoff between speed, security, and decentralization. This is referred to as the blockchain trilemma. Learn more

How to Set Up Reliable Blockchain Infrastructure

Nodes are computers that perform essential tasks such as verifying transactions, storing blockchain data, or casting votes for network governance. There are several different types of nodes, each with their own functions. Nodes can be hosted on bare metal, a dedicated cluster, or in the cloud. They are connected to each other via peer-to-peer communication channels. The most common are read/write nodes, which store the blockchain memory containing the ledger of verified transactions, and relay nodes, which reduce transmission times by routing information through many other nodes. Some nodes also act as sentry nodes, which are an additional barrier that protects participation nodes from attacks.

When setting up a blockchain infrastructure, it is important to consider scalability and high availability (HA). Scaling a blockchain infrastructure can improve performance by increasing capacity and reducing downtime. A HA strategy can increase resilience by reducing the impact of regional outages or other events that may affect an entire node pool. Other important considerations are disk management and performance optimization. For example, choosing a high-performance storage solution and enabling pruning can reduce disk space requirements by removing older data. Also, adjusting the cache size and regularly monitoring resource usage can help avoid bottlenecks.