Blockchain Downtime and Maintenance: Challenges and Solutions

There is almost no room for error in the blockchain world. Even a small mistake can cost millions or billions of dollars. The best way to avoid such errors is to maintain the network properly.

However, being a Decentralised rollups sequencer, maintenance is not as easy as it is with the Web2 application. So, let’s understand the challenges and the potential solutions on the blockchain and downtime to understand the system from a little closer.

Blockchain downtime 

Because many nodes work together decentrally for any blockchain, it could suffer downtimes. And downtime can be caused by any one or more of the following reasons. Either the network can get too congested with improper setup and stop responding to new transactions.

Or there is some bug in the code that doesn’t let the system function properly. Or if you’re talking about a rollup system, then malfunction of a critical part of the sequencer, prover, or other mechanisms. There can be 100s of reasons why a blockchain may go down. But there’s only one way to protect it: maintenance.

Blockchain maintenance

Maintenance does not only mean solving problems or fixing bugs; it can also mean creating better systems to make your blockchain faster and more efficient or just general monitoring.

Maintenance is absolutely essential for the longevity and efficiency of the blockchain to keep it secure and up-to-date. Neglecting this important step can invite critical vulnerabilities, downtime, reduced efficiency and performance, and even complete failures. 

The actual process of maintenance can be classified into three easy steps

Monitoring

It starts with monitoring the blockchain. This means actively checking the health of the blockchain on a periodic basis. Any anomaly in transactions and user behavior should cause suspicion and need further investigation.

Monitoring can be done simply via block explorers or performance analytics tools. Monitoring the blockchain is an important part. This tells you how things are going and can warn you in advance if something is off. You can also implement real-time alerts for anomalous behavior. Be active in listening to the feedback from the community. 

Analysis

After monitoring and gathering the data, the analysis part comes next. Where you make sense of what’s happening and what the data is trying to tell you. Is the anomalous transaction just a random thing, or is there something big hidden behind it? Are smart contracts working fine, or is there a reason they’re throwing more errors these days?

Is network congestion due to an increase in transactions or some unwanted behavior the reason? You analyze the information thoroughly and try to find the bugs, problems, and areas of improvement. This section also involves a lot of active testing and auditing of different functionalities of the blockchain. 

Testing and implementation

Most of the time, there will be no need for active intervention. Blockchain would work fine. But for every now and then, when you find a critical vulnerability, this part becomes applicable.

After you find out the compromised or vulnerable part, you can start devising the solution or fix it. Then, you need to understand if the fix can be implemented easily or if it requires a breaking change. The former, of course, would be easier to implement.

Once you find that out, now it’s time to test and audit extensively. Test the entire lifecycle of the blockchain/smart contract wherever the bug may be present, try different techniques for testing, and once you’re sure it’s ready to go to production, then push it with the help of the majority of nodes. 

Take expert advise

And if all of this sounds too complicated to you, which it kind of is, then you should definitely consider getting advice from experts who have been there and done that.

At this point, you can even consider outsourcing the maintenance of your blockchain to a dedicated service that guarantees uptime and takes care of all the complexities associated with the maintenance. This way, you can be tension-free on this side and focus more on the product you’re building. 

Either way, it’s essential that blockchains follow proper downtime and maintenance policies. This not only keeps the system secure and updated, but it also keeps the trust going between the stakeholders and the ecosystem. 

Conclusion

Downtime and maintenance are two of the most important security considerations of any blockchain. Any compromise with these can nullify all the great things you or people do on your blockchain.

If the system is not secure or not online, nothing matters. The maintenance is particularly challenging in blockchain as it requires consensus from the majority of nodes, but it is usually for the better. In any case, it’s an important security measure that must be followed in any condition.