Taraxa Weekly Update: Week 7
A week full of accomplishments on Aphrogenes Testnet
Feb 19, 2020 · 2 min read
This week was marked by the successful completion of another sprint towards the improved stability of Aphrogenes. In addition to fixing performance and stability issues, we hit several crucial points on the consensus and node syncing fronts.
PBFT Consensus and Execution Schedule
Efficient proposals enable Taraxa’s PoS to produce fair and non-coordinated block proposals, which is essential for the network’s security. Accomplished this week:
- Fixed PBFT block signing
- Made ETH block available via ETH API strictly after it has been committed
- Fixed ETH transaction receipt “status” field
- Code review for fixing PBFT block signature and RLP improvements
- WIP on making the database atomic:
- Database and PBFT chain updating needs decoupling and structural reorganization
- Making the number of executed DAG blocks/transactions DB, DAG block period DB, DAG block order/height DB, PBFT certify votes DB, PBFT chain DB, PBFT block index DB, PBFT block period DB, PBFT chain head DB to atomic
Optimizing the network’s throughput
We make use of the DAG topology to enhance the overall throughput by enabling the rapid finalization of the block DAG:
- Added new parameters for the soft and hard limit of transaction and DAG blocks in verifying queues when queues get filled up
- Modified test parameters to be more readable:
- Simplified transaction insertion and verification to enable easy synchronous and asynchronous verification
- Implemented a proper RLP serialization in PBFT blocks and used it as the base for hash and signature
Transaction Executor and Concurrent EVM
Taraxa’s concurrent virtual machine is unique in terms of being able to run smart contracts in parallel in order to increase the network’s throughput.
Accomplished on the transaction engine side this week:
- Developed an algorithm for planning parallel execution (and executing the plan in parallel) of Ethereum state trie hashing or any bubbling-up non-commutative calculation on any tree (python/graphviz garage)
- Figured a set of techniques to significantly reduce the influence of Ethereum trie operations on transaction execution speed.
