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Network data

Other Functions: Network Data​

What is it?​

One of the main value propositions of a public blockchain network is that it be, well, public. This means that the information about what’s going on the network needs to be readily available. Networks like Ethereum have this more or less built in and available as part of the software: each node has an API that will return any information you ask for; if you have a lot of requests, well, you just need more nodes.

To be clear, that’s how Linea works too–it’s just that Ethereum is decentralized and open; anyone can run a node. Linea is still a testnet, and its nodes are only being run by teams at Consensys. Therefore, in order to provide for the massive interest that the network has generated, a lot of nodes have to be run. This allows dapps to ask for information about the state of the network without impeding the actual execution of transactions by overloading the client.

What does it do?​

Receives and responds to requests from users and dapps according to the Ethereum JSON-RPC API standard. This includes providing information to MetaMask users about their accounts on Linea.

How does it do it?​

By leveraging the expertise and resources of Infura, Consensys, and the Ethereum ecosystem as a whole 😀 Infura is running a number of nodes to provide this service, in two main capacities:

Client-facing RPC-API nodes​

  • These nodes do the “traditional” work of EVM nodes: on the one hand, they are receiving updated network state information from the sequencer and state manager, and providing information about that state to users and dapps when they request it. On the other, they are receiving incoming transactions.
  • All that traffic means that Infura is running them behind a load balancer, and bringing their expertise in scaling blockchain networks across the operation. Those transactions submitted by users are therefore balanced across the nodes, and are thereby routed into the memory pool, for subsequent ingestion and processing by the Coordinator and sequencer in zkBesu.

Archive Nodes​

  • There are more and more dapps and research activities being performed not just on current transaction data, but historical data as well–whether from a day ago, last month, or three years ago (though not that long on Linea, yet!).
  • This type of data request can be quite resource-intensive, and could put the live network nodes at risk of having their performance impacted, and thus threaten the overall health of the network. For this reason, Infura also has deployed archive nodes in a scalable architecture; these kinds of transactions aren’t being run all the time, after all–but when they are, more nodes are spun up as needed to keep up with demand.