Hi, I find that I can’t start a new topic as a new user. This is a temperature-check thread to see if ProbeLab’s offering is of interest to this group, before proceeding to submit a full-fledged proposal. Let me know how I convert this to a new topic to receive feedback from the community, so that we can proceed (or not) accordingly.
Zcash Network Health Metrics on probelab[dot]io - Temperature Check
About the team
Our team, ProbeLab, specialises in developing tools for measurement and monitoring of P2P layer protocols. We’ve got a wide variety of tools and deployed infrastructure that runs 24/7 and monitors several high profile networks - see: probelab[dot]io for details. We’ve developed top-notch methodology thanks to our deep research, PhD-level background, but also our practical engineering experience from the field the past 5+ years. As a sample of our track-record to date, we monitor more than 10 networks, performing more than 2k crawls per week, monitoring more than 50k nodes, for the past 3 years that we’ve been in operation.
Our dashboards, at: probelab[dot]io, have become the reference point for several top Web3 networks and alongside the alerts that we’re setting up for several of the metrics, we’re helping protocol engineers to debug their networks, save time and move faster.
About the project
We would like to add Zcash to our portfolio of monitored networks. At the minimum we will provide the following set of metrics for the Zcash network:
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Network size / node count
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Node geolocation and geolocation over time
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Overlay topology
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Agent version distribution
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Client diversity trend
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Transport Protocol Support & Supported Protocols over time
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Cloud provider dependency
Additional results that would involve more substantial effort could focus on the pubsub protocol used to distribute blocks between Zcash nodes.
Project Impact - what will be possible with this project, that is not possible today.
The metrics and dashboards that we will produce and maintain will provide real-time view of critical metrics for the Zcash network. In turn, this makes it easier to understand the structure of the network, the behaviour of core network protocols, as well as the effectiveness of updates. Having a real-time view of how the network behaves during major upgrades gives confidence to engineers and also a clear signal of where to look at in case of problems.