This topic is intended to capture Subnet Management activities over time for the w4asl subnet, providing a place to ask questions and make observations about the management of this subnet.
At the time of creating this topic the current subnet configuration is as follows:
The removed node is replaced with a node based in South Africa. This certainly seems positive for decentralisation (many existing nodes are clustered in central Europe). I’ve verified that this node is currently unassigned.
DFINITY will submit a proposal today to reduce the notarization delay on the subnet, w4asl , similar to what has happened on other subnets in recent weeks (you can find all details in this forum thread ).
Voted to adopt proposal 134184, as the reasoning is sound and the description matches the payload. This proposal replaces 2 healthy nodes, both of which appear as “Active” on the IC dashboard. The proposed change improves decentralisation with respect to country and brings the target topology parameters to within the requirements.
TLDR: I’m planning to adopt. Improves decentralisation in terms of formal coefficients. 2 American nodes replaced with nodes in Asia (South Korea and China).
Motivation:
replacing node xlqvn-a6nqo-dsmpl-hq33f-asc6z-haf6v-lpmng-vptat-aay4e-pbtyh-fae to optimize network topology
replacing node kqf7j-27dmb-6mtlc-kqnsm-ujlcw-3mw2p-sia27-gvkzk-qaqf6-6eekr-eqe to optimize network topology
However this subnet is already meeting the requirements of the IC Target Topology (max number of nodes per country is currently 2, and will be 1 once this proposals executes). This is a good thing, but I wonder if over-optimisation on one subnet could make it harder to allow other subnets to meet their targets (not all subnets currently meet the requirements of the IC Target Topology). Would this be a reasonable concern @sat, @SvenF?
Decentralisation Stats
Subnet node distance stats (distance between any 2 nodes in the subnet) →
Smallest Distance
Average Distance
Largest Distance
EXISTING
89.483 km
7490.799 km
15663.139 km
PROPOSED
278.624 km (+211.4%)
7382.825 km (-1.4%)
15091.377 km (-3.7%)
Subnet characteristic counts →
Continents
Countries
Data Centers
Owners
Node Providers
Node Operator
EXISTING
4
11
13
13
13
13
PROPOSED
4
13 (+15.4%)
13
13
13
13
This proposal slightly improves decentralisation in terms of jurisdiction diversity.
Largest number of nodes with the same characteristic (e.g. continent, country, data center, etc.) →
The above subnet information is illustrated below, followed by a node reference table:
Map Description
Red marker represents a removed node (transparent center for overlap visibility)
Green marker represents an added node
Blue marker represents an unchanged node
Highlighted patches represent the country the above nodes sit within (red if the country is removed, green if added, otherwise grey)
Light grey markers with yellow borders are examples of unassigned nodes that would be viable candidates for joining the subnet according to formal decentralisation coefficients (so this proposal can be viewed in the context of alternative solutions that are not being used)
Known Neurons to follow if you're too busy to keep on top of things like this
If you found this analysis helpful and would like to follow the vote of the LORIMER known neuron in the future, consider configuring LORIMER as a followee for the Subnet Management topic.
Another good neuron to follow is Synapse (follows the LORIMER and CodeGov known neurons for Subnet Management, and is a generally well informed known neuron to follow on numerous other topics)
The proposal replaces 2 healthy Active status nodes form Dallas and Fremont, US with Awaiting nodes from Seoul 2, KR and HongKong 1, HK in order to optimize network topology.
Voted to adopt proposal 134184. The proposal replaces two nodes from subnet w4asl:
Removed Nodes: xlqvn, kqf7j.
Added Nodes: quca2 and q6i2a.
The proposal was verified using the DRE tool to verify the metrics stated. All nodes replaced are healthy but this replacements improve the network topology on the country` metric by reducing the number of nodes in the US from 3 to 1.
Yes this is very much an attention point, especially if you have few spare nodes. There is more than enough Gen1 spare node machines, but for Gen2 spare node machines it is worth comparing the outcome of the optimization tooling (the linear programming) with the actual target topology so we avoid sub-optimization.
The proposal replaces dead Offline status node quca2 from Seoul2 Korea, with healthy Awaiting status node qvskl from Seoul1 Korea, without any change to the decentralization of the subnet.
This proposal replaces node quca2 which appears in the dashboard as “Status: Offline”. As shown in the proposal, decentralisation parameters are unchanged and remain within the requirements of the target topology.
The above subnet information is illustrated below, followed by a node reference table:
Map Description
Red marker represents a removed node (transparent center for overlap visibility)
Green marker represents an added node
Blue marker represents an unchanged node
Highlighted patches represent the country the above nodes sit within (red if the country is removed, green if added, otherwise grey)
Light grey markers with yellow borders are examples of unassigned nodes that would be viable candidates for joining the subnet according to formal decentralisation coefficients (so this proposal can be viewed in the context of alternative solutions that are not being used)
You may wish to follow D-QUORUM if you found this analysis helpful.
Known Neurons to follow if you're too busy to keep on top of things like this
If you found this analysis helpful and would like to follow the vote of the LORIMER known neuron in the future, consider configuring LORIMER as a followee for the Subnet Management topic.
Additional good neurons to follow:
D-QUORUM (a highly decentralized neuron that follows neurons that have been elected by the NNS)
Synapse (currently follows the LORIMER and CodeGov known neurons for Subnet Management, and is a generally well informed known neuron to follow on numerous other topics)
CodeGov (actively reviews and votes on Subnet Management proposals, and is well informed on numerous other technical topics)
WaterNeuron (the WaterNeuron DAO frequently discuss proposals like this in order to vote responsibly based on DAO consensus)
Note that this analysis involved data provided by the IC-API, which is not open source. I’m in the process of switching over to more verifiable sources of this sort of information for future proposal reviews. See here for related discussion.
