Exploring Insolar’s groundbreaking technology in detail

Interview with Danil Kabanov Head of Application Development from team Insolar

Nodes

Insolar has quite a unique masternode system, can you please explain in simple terms the different node requirements, tasks and how they all benefit the ecosystem?

Separating the roles of nodes allows to manage the power of the network more flexible and utilize hardware resources more efficiently.

Virtual nodes execute code and perform calculations, and so they require a lot of CPU power.

Light Material nodes are engaged in short-term storage of hot data. These nodes require large amounts of RAM and a fast network.

Heavy Material nodes are targeted at long-term storage of data. These require a large hard drive space and also have high network speed requirements, but not as stringent as those of Light Material nodes.

Unlimited Scalability

Scalability is the issue every project is trying to solve since Bitcoin and Ethereum network. Insolar has solved the scalability issue without compromising decentralization via OmniScaling, which, theoretically, means linear scaling of the platform.

How is that possible? and why have so many failed to achieve scalability so far?

Unlike most other systems, where every network node performs every operation and stores all the same data simultaneously, with Insolar operations on a specific object are performed by a smaller amount of nodes at a time. This is highlighted above in how the roles are split into material and virtual nodes. The material nodes handle storage: hot data is stored in light material nodes and cold data — in heavy material nodes. Meanwhile, virtual nodes compute the data and confirm its validity, relaying data back to light material nodes.

This method means that different nodes perform different functions. Imagine: Just as allocating housework between housemates increases efficiency in completing menial chores, assigning certain functions to specific nodes allows for higher processing speeds, whilst it also allows the network to scale as additional nodes added are assigned varying functions. i.e. the many hands make light work, and, in this case, they all aren’t performing the same task. As more nodes are added, the network can allocate roles where needed to increase either computation or storage capacity.

However, in other blockchains, all nodes in the network perform the same actions for the same operations simultaneously. First they calculate, then they validate, then they all store the entire history of transactions. This slows the entire network down.

Data objects are also stored on a small number of nodes split into pieces via data sharding. This takes place by what we call “jets”, which are essentially data shards. As the network becomes more overloaded, jets (data) split and stream (multiply) into more jets and are spread across nodes, meaning more computation and/or storage can be done at once. When the network is less loaded, these jets stream back towards their original streams and are stored together, depending on the changes that have been made to the initial data set. This means that the system itself is scalable via sharding, while node roles increase throughput capacity. As such, we can increase the network capacity by simply adding more nodes.

Security

While you have reduced the workload of nodes to make it more scalable and efficient, at the same time insolar network describes itself as very secure. Please explain how and why ?

Just as node roles in general are split, so are the Virtual (computational) nodes. They are split into executors (computing transactions) and validators. The amount of validators implemented depends on the value of the transaction. The more validators, the more secure the transaction as they verify the result of the initial execution (computation). The roles are determined randomly over a limited period of time, while, moreover, we do not need the entire network to confirm (validate) transactions to be sure that they are correct. In order to falsify a result, a hacker would need to know which nodes perform the validation of their malicious transaction, which is the same as saying they would need to hack all the nodes of the network.

Clouds

It has become evident that with replacing centralized servers and systems, we could use clouds for nearly every task we do.

Please tell us about how insolar is using clouds, and how cloud-hosted nodes work.

Well, blockchains can use any server, cloud or otherwise and this doesn’t affect how the network works.

We use cloud-hosted nodes so that clients don’t have to deploy nodes, meaning they don’t have to purchase specific hardware and can easily increase/decrease capacity with the demand for their business. We offer quick and simple access to Insolar networks with popular cloud providers in just a few clicks.

Speaking about what differentiates our blockchain when utilizing cloud servers: with Insolar, you do not store your private key inside the single cloud node. Insolar Blockchain Platform offers a split-key storage mechanism that provides a secure way of data encryption, safe data sharing without a key or original data been compromised to any third party cloud provider. Instead, it is split across several nodes. This means that you can store your data more securely.

Interoperability

Many projects work on this, and while at the start every blockchain was an independent island, it has become transparent that this is not the way to achieve adoption.

How does insolar communicate with other networks, and how can the utility of its own chain and token be conserved.

We have approached interoperability as a two-pronged issue: interoperability with conventional systems and interoperability with other blockchain systems. With conventional systems, we can share data by using a special smart contract which provides a special API for outside systems to connect to. This acts as a gateway for calls and messages sent to and from a certain set of nodes.

For interoperability with other blockchain systems, the platform allows other blockchains to join as domains, and makes message exchange and data proofs run in this domain, in accordance with external platform rules and architecture. There will also be the possibility to run native contracts on Insolar.

Modular

While insolar has great stability, and performance, it is also highly adaptable, how will upgrades and business integration work?

For the MainNet we will provide our own fixes. In general, Insolar is open source and we have an active community of devs. In fact, we are number one by the amount of commits on GitHub over the past 3 months, 6 months and year time periods.

Both platform and its applications are designed driven by enterprise IT system architecture patterns. It consists of logical layers which work separately and allow to upgrade components without other platform parts been involved. As for business integration, developers can use tools like API and SDK that provide final business logic functions and do not need to create service code for network consensus or for storing data within the ledger. Moreover, business templates for applications are provided, simplifying app development. These templates mean that you don’t have to start coding from scratch when creating a solution on Insolar Blockchain Platform.

Insolar has a very exciting year ahead!

some links to #dyor

Website: http://www.insolar.io

Group: https://t.me/insolar

https://t.me/InsolarAnnouncements

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/insolar/

https://twitter.com/insolario

Insolar at Blockchain Summit London 2019

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tehMoonwalkeR

TG announcement channel: https://t.me/tehmoonwalkin

TG discussion channel: https://t.me/joinchat/FgncLw8SKo3w_nrlvmpeUA