This page introduces Google Cloud's Blockchain Node Engine.
Overview
Blockchain Node Engine is a fully managed node-hosting service. Companies that require dedicated nodes can relay transactions, deploy smart contracts, and read or write blockchain data with the reliability, performance, and security they expect from Google Cloud compute and network infrastructure. While self-managed nodes are often difficult to deploy and require constant management, Blockchain Node Engine provides the configurability of a self-hosted node without any of the operational overhead.
Blockchain technologies are changing the way the world stores and moves its information. Blockchain Node Engine builds on our commitment to help Web3 developers build and deploy new products on blockchain-based platforms.
Blockchains consist of transaction data that is permanently stored and anonymized, acting as decentralized databases. Instead of relying on a central entity to validate and store data, the governing infrastructure of a blockchain is a node: a device, such as a computer, laptop, or server, that contains a full copy of the transaction history of the blockchain. Nodes on a blockchain form a peer-to-peer network, constantly exchanging the latest blockchain data so that all nodes stay in sync.
Ethereum is the first blockchain supported by Blockchain Node Engine, enabling developers to provision fully managed Ethereum nodes with secure blockchain access.
With Blockchain Node Engine, organizations enjoy the following benefits:
Streamlined provisioning:
Manually deploying a node is a time-intensive process that includes waiting for the node to sync with the network. Syncing a full node from the first block (i.e.,
genesis) can take several days. Google Cloud's Blockchain Node Engine can make this process faster and easier by allowing developers to deploy a new node with a single operation, and specify the desired region and network (Mainnet, Testnet).Fully managed operations:
Ensuring that blockchain infrastructure is ready and available typically means having a DevOps team on-hand to monitor the system and remediate problems during an outage. Blockchain Node Engine is a fully-managed service, which can mean you don't have to worry about availability. Google Cloud actively monitors the nodes and restarts them during outages as needed. By reducing the need for a dedicated DevOps team, and by offering Google Cloud's service level agreement (SLA), Blockchain Node Engine can let your team focus on your users instead of your infrastructure.
Get started
Getting started with Blockchain Node Engine is simple:
- Take care of a few simple prerequisites.
- Verify you have the right permissions.
- Enable the Blockchain Node Engine API.
- Create a blockchain node!