Please describe your proposed solution

"SuperNode" is the common term used by the industry to describe an infrastructure orchestration layer that unifies the operational aspects of running a diverse set of nodes, processes & services from multiple blockchains.

There are existing implementation within the category of SuperNodes, but none of them focus on the idea of Cardano Partnerchains. Our proposal aims to build a solution tailored for Cardano SPOs where they can leverage their existing knowledge and expertise to increase their revenue stream by offering security to connected Partnerchains.

In particular, our solution will provide the following characteristics / features:

• Partnerchain onboarding wizard: a simple web UI allowing SPOs to execute the required on-chain ceremony to become part of the block-producing committee of a particular partnerchain.
• Partnerchain node provisioning: a simple UI to provision the required infrastructure components (containers) to host the specific node for a partnerchain.
• Unified monitoring: a unified web interface for SPOs to monitor health, load and traffic from all of their connected partnerchains; including alerting system integration.
• Kubernetes: built on top of Kubernetes as a way to leverage it's battle-tested container orchestration functionality and extensive tooling.
• Run it anywhere: our SuperNode is agnostic of the underlying compute infrastructure; it can run on on-premise or on cloud-providers; directly bare metal or in virtualized environments.
• Bring your own cloud: SPOs will be able to easily deploy their SuperNode directly on their own cloud-provider accounts (support for AWS, GCP and Azure) using scripts provided as part of the tool.
• Partnerchain Discovery: the UI will integrate a public catalog of available networks, serving as a marketplace to match SPOs with partnerchains in need of operators.

Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

The potential benefits of a rich partnerchain ecosystem on top of Cardano has been extensively discussed by the community, the key points can be summarized as:

• allows new use-cases that require a different set of trade-offs at the protocol level (consensus, finality, etc) by extending Cardano capabilities instead of forcing projects to opt for other chains.
• leverages the extensive and robust community of SPOs to serve as providers for new chains. This provides a new revenue stream for SPOs, effectively making the Cardano network more secure.

All of the above benefits won't live to its potential if the node operators can't handle the complexity of managing all of these new infrastructure requirements and procedures. A SuperNode that simplifies the operation will improve our chances of building a rich and active partnerchain ecosystem.

What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

TxPipe is an active member of the Cardano ecosystem

TxPipe has been developing open-source tools for the Cardano ecosystem for over 3 years and we're not going anywhere. Evidence of our commitment can be found by evaluating the continuous activity of our public code repositories.

Experience developing in the Cardano ecosystem

TxPipe has helped developed several dApps for the Cardano ecosystem. This experience allows us to evaluate the feasibility of the project and its potential benefit from a developer's perspective. We've also participated in development of chains using the released version of the IOG's Partnerchain SDK.

Successful Catalyst proposals

We have successfully completed several Catalyst proposals. This is evidence that our team has the required capabilities to fulfill these type of projects.

Development process will be public and open-source

Both the output and the development process will be public and open-source. This approach provides an easy way for the Catalyst team and the Cardano community to evaluate the progress at each step of the process.

What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Milestone 1: Project Scaffolding

Milestone outputs:

• A stub of the Kubernetes operator
• A stub of the management web UI
• A stub of the management CLI
• A stub of the API interface

Acceptance criteria:

• All components stubs are ready for feature development
• A CI/CD pipeline is in place to build / integrate the different artifacts

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Publicly available source-code containing the project scaffold

Milestone 2: Onboarding Flow

Milestone outputs:

• Off-chain code for interacting with partnerchain contracts
• UI for SPOs to onboard a partnerchain
• UI for SPOs to track partnerchain membership status

Acceptance criteria:

• An SPO is able to use the UI to join a partnerchain (testnet environment)
• An SPO is able to use the UI to view existing partnerchain memberships

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Publicly available source-code containing off-chain / UI code
• Video showing how to interact with the UI
• On-chain transactions on Cardano show the corresponding interactions

Milestone 3: Infrastructure Orchestration Layer

Milestone outputs:

• Substrate node provisioning script using Helm charts
• Custom Helm chart registry for partnerchains
• Metric scraping and storage mechanism
• Staging environment with example nodes

Acceptance criteria:

• An SPO is able to provision a Substrate partnerchain node using a Helm chart
• Health & activity metrics from a provisioned node are available for querying

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Publicly available source-code containing infrastructure scripts
• The Helm registry contains an example chart for a partnerchain
• Video showing a walkthrough of the running staging environment

Milestone 4: Management & Discovery UI

Milestone outputs:

• UI for provisioning new Substrate node
• UI for monitoring running Substrate nodes
• UI for discovering available partnerchains

Acceptance criteria:

• An SPO is able to use the UI to provision a new partnerchain node
• An SPO is able to use the UI to monitor running nodes
• An SPO is able to use the UI to browse available partnerchains

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Publicly available source-code of the developed UI components
• Video showing a walkthrough of how to use the available UI

Milestone 5: Packaging & Documentation

Milestone outputs:

• Stand-alone install package for the SuperNode
• Deployment scripts for each of the supported cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• Documentation site with setup & usage instructions

Acceptance criteria:

• An SPO is able to install the SuperNode by following the docs
• An SPO is able to deploy the SuperNode to their accounts in supported cloud providers
• An SPO is able to operate the SuperNode by following the docs

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Publicly available source-code of deployment scripts
• Video showing a walkthrough of how to install the SuperNode
• Publicly available documentation site

Final Milestone: Final Report

Milestone outputs:

• publicly available source-code of the complete system
• publicly available documentation site with setup & usage instructions
• a video showcasing the final output of the project
• a final report describing the project process and outcome

Acceptance criteria:

• the final system includes all features described in the proposal's scope
• the final video complies with Catalyst requirements
• the final report complies with Catalyst requirements

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Source-code available in the Github repository
• Public documentation site (URL TBD)
• Final video uploaded to Google drive
• Final report uploaded to Google drive

Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

The senior TxPipe members involved in this project will be:

• Santiago Carmuega - Github
• Federico Weill - Linkedin
• Rodrigo Suaya - Linkedin
• Felipe Gonzalez - Github
• Paulo Bressan - Github
• Manuel Gunther - Linkedin
• Franco Luque - Github
• Alejandro Gadea - Github

Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

FTE = Full-time equivalent

Total budget = ₳ 198,713

Software development:

• Rust developer: 1 FTE x 2 months = ₳ 51,429
• Aiken developer: 0.5 FTE x 2 months = ₳ 25,714
• Frontend Developer: 1 FTE x 2 months = ₳ 22,857
• Technical Writer: 1/2 FTE x 2 months = ₳ 8,571

UX Design:

• UX Designer: 0.5 FTE x 2 months = ₳ 8,571

Cloud Infrastructure:

• Site reliability engineer: 1 FTE x 3 months = ₳ 68,571
• Hosting: Staging infrastructure x 5 months = ₳ 2,286

Project Management:

• Project Manager: 1/4 FTE x 5 months = ₳ 10,714

We have a dependency on IOG's Partnerchain SDK which already has a public release. We're planning on supporting the latest released version by the time we start the development process.

How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

The bulk of the budget falls under the software development category. TxPipe has extensive experience in the field, allowing it to provide good value for money. The hourly rates are defined using fair market prices. The estimation for the level of effort takes into account all of the optimizations that our team is capable of providing after years of experience developing software solutions in the Cardano ecosystem.