Environments

The official Cardano Environment configuration files:

Throw-away Devnets

Usage: Hard fork testing, Testing new release functionality that needs public involvement

These can be spun up/torn down at any time by release manager for specific tests, such as hard forks.

These are shared with the community for early involvment before a release candidate is mature.

Recieves updates for official releases, release candidates and occasionally custom tags that aren't candidates for release

Upgrade Strategy: Deploy all nodes with every request

Changes Requested by: Release Manager Approvals Required: SRE Director or SRE Resident Manager

Responsible: SRE Accountable: SRE Director Consulted: Release Manager Informed: Cardano Core Tribe

Shelley-QA (Internal Only)

Usage: Testing all new functionality. Ideally automatically deployed off of master on every commit

Ideally, stays long running to build up history, although the nature of early testing can potentially break it. In the past we have disaster recoveried it since we control all the keys.

Upgrade Strategy: Deploy all nodes with every request

Changes Requested by: QA Team Approvals Required: SRE Director or SRE Resident Manager

Responsible: SRE Accountable: SRE Director/QA Manager Consulted: Release Manager Informed: QA Team

Preview Testnet

Usage: Testing release candidates and mainnet releases. Leads mainnet hard forks by at least 4 weeks.

Ideally stays long running. Only if an issue is found after it forks that's breaking should it be respun.

Epoch length of 1 day. Development flags allowed in configuration files.

Upgrade Strategy:

  • Release Candidates - 1/3 of nodes
  • Official Releases - 2/3 of nodes
  • Hard forks - all nodes
  • Community requested to only deploy release candidates and official releases

Changes Requested by: Release Squad Lead Approvals Required: SRE Tribe Lead, Cardano Head of Engineering, Cardano Head of Architecture

Responsible: IOG SRE Accountable: Head of SRE/Release Squad Lead Consulted: SPOs Informed: Cardano Core Tribe, COO, Director of Engineering

Pre-Production Testnet

Usage: Testing release candidates and mainnet releases. Forks at approximately same time as mainnet (within an epoch of each other).

Long running. Since this parallels mainnet, if a bug occurs here, it needs fixed properly and can not be respun.

Upgrade Strategy:

  • Release Candidates - 1/3 of nodes
  • Official Releases - 2/3 of nodes
  • Hard forks - all nodes
  • Community requested to only deploy release candidates and official releases

Changes Requested by: Release Squad Lead Approvals Required: SRE Tribe Lead, Cardano Head of Engineering, Cardano Head of Architecture, CF Representative

Responsible: IOG SRE Accountable: Head of SRE/Release Squad Lead Consulted: SPOs, IOG Tribes Informed: Cardano Core Tribe, COO, Director of Engineering, VP Community

Production (Mainnet)

Usage: Live Production. Only gets official mainnet releases.

Upgrade Strategy:

  • Official Releases - Deploy 1 pool and it's relays every 24 hours
  • Community requested to only deploy official releases

Changes Requested by: Release Squad Lead Approvals Required: SRE Tribe Lead, IOG Executive Team, CF Executive Team

Responsible: IOG SRE Accountable: Head of SRE/Release Squad Lead Consulted: SPOs, IOG Tribes, IOG Executive Team Informed: Cardano Core Tribe, COO, IOG Director of Engineering, IOG VP Community