Downtime is an unavoidable part of owning and operating a server. Even big tech companies face this problem, and it’s usually a costly experience regardless of whether your business is large or small. However, you can minimize the risk — and with careful planning, you can altogether avoid the most common causes of server downtime.

Nodes are the backbone of blockchain technology because all data transactions occur on them. That’s why it can be so problematic when they go down. This article will look at the most common causes of blockchain node downtime and the steps to fix and avoid them effectively.

Major Causes of Node Downtime

Node downtime can occur for various reasons, the most common of which are as follows:

Overloading

Overloading occurs when your node doesn’t have enough resources to support your processing operations. For example, suppose you allocate enough disk space and RAM to your node to support 1,000 users. When the number of users passes 1,000, your node will fail because it doesn't have enough resources.

Software Errors

Downtime on your node might not be your fault — it could be because of a lousy dependency (the underlying system on which your setup is hosted). In the case of blockchain nodes, this translates to software like Geth, Parity, etc. If something goes wrong with that software, it could cause your blockchain node to go down.

Data Corruption

Nodes can also fail due to data corruption, and they’re likely to go down because of a bad block (lousy sector) on their storage drive. However, these cases are pretty rare.

How to Avoid Downtime

You can take additional steps to secure your blockchain nodes and prevent downtime from occurring in the first place. Let's take a quick look at them.

Allocate Sufficient Resources

You want to ensure you’ve allocated enough resources to serve your users during setup. While this might sound easy, choosing the best resource allocation strategy can be complicated. However, if your node is hosted on InfStones, the process is straightforward and streamlined — we programmatically generate a recommended resource configuration for you during the setup process. As experts in the field, we know the optimal CPU and disk allocation percentages for each blockchain network.

Another suggestion is to have an auto-scaling pipeline, which is a mechanism that will automatically scale your node’s resources when it starts to run out. InfStones has simplified this option even further with an auto-scaling feature that automatically increases your node’s resources when the existing configuration approaches a certain threshold.

Monitoring

Monitoring your node is another critical part of avoiding downtime. Regardless of whether you allocated enough resources to your node during setup or have an auto-scaling feature, it is essential to monitor your node’s status continuously. Block Watch is an excellent monitoring option that allows you to configure customized notification settings based on your needs and monitor your services at all times.

Create and Restore Backup

If your blockchain is hosted locally, you can restore your node from a backup or roll it back to a previous version. This procedure varies for various blockchains; however, things become even more complicated when working with multiple blockchain networks. Additionally, as the size of the backup data grows, it can be challenging to store and manage. Restoring data from a backup can also be time-consuming, which can lead to extended periods of downtime.

Resolving Blockchain Node Downtime — Wrapping Up

Blockchain development can be difficult and expensive if you're starting from scratch. You'll have to meet some hardware requirements to get your node up and running, and you'll also have to deal with issues like scaling and avoiding downtime.

However, you can solve these challenges by leveraging blockchain infrastructure platforms. These platforms enable you to concentrate on your core business activities while they handle the heavy lifting.

InfStones provides you with extensive access to everything you'll ever need for blockchain development. You can set up a blockchain node in minutes by choosing one of the over 70 available blockchain networks or easily leverage our blockchain API services for instant access.