Cardano-Heartbeat (CEM) 💞

Overview

We will use our skills to provide a Critical Event Management (CEM) Platform for all Cardano Stake Pool Operators (SPOs) that will ensure consistent operation of the network through various disruptions or disasters.

Benefits from Cardano Heartbeat CEM will include:

• Early notification of relevant threats to your stake pools operation.
• The automation of incident response activities and resiliency protocol.
• Rapid recovery of stake pool operations, should key components fail in a disaster.
• Assurance to your delegators when your pool verifiably exceeds the standards of resiliency.

Benefits from the development of the Cardano Heartbeat CEM include:

• Complete self-assessment of your stake pools risk profile, motivating SPOs to move from a reactive crisis response approach to proactive crisis prevention.
• Better networking with SPOs on a regional basis to identify unthought-of threats and hazards.
• Development of Best Practices amongst Stake Pool Operations.

Who is on the team:

Olivier [SBLYR] SPO, Full-stack/web developer & DevOps

https://github.com/sublayerio

Ken Adams (KEWW) SPO, TEEX Infrastructure Protection, FEMA NIMS ICS, marketing, education content

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJHMqKAgmyd82ylnyBFC79Q

Tony [PIADA] SPO, Network, IT, Automation

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyburger/

https://github.com/eastpiada

Wael [PIADA] SPO, Project/product manager, Marketing, Data Analyst

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wael-ivie/

https://github.com/AstroWa3l

Wayne [OTG] SPO, DevOps, Electronics & Hardware, Stake Pool Resiliency Specialist

https://armada-alliance.com/identities/wcat-otg

https://github.com/wcatz

Sayshar [SRN] SPO, Electronics & Hardware, IT, Automation

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sayshar-nair/

We are founding members of the Armada Alliance, a Cardano Stake Pool Alliance🏴‍☠️ 

 https://armada-alliance.com

How will the Cardano Heartbeat CEM be designed and developed?

First, understand that a Critical Event Management Platform employs various technologies and data to take manual processes and automate them to make the early notification, expedite recovery, and maintain operations during emergencies.

A CEM platform consists of three key elements and our approach to addressing these elements:

1. Risk Analysis

Utilizing the experience and training through FEMA and the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium, we will complete and provide a Threat & Hazard Identification & Risk Assessment & Stakeholder Preparedness Review (THIRA/SPR assessment) to be completed by a certified TEEX Infrastructure Protection Professional.

Development of "Stake Pool Resiliency and Security" self-assessment survey. This quiz-style survey compiled by multiple SPOs in this project and the greater SPO community will provide an accurate assessment of current capabilities across the network. The result will benefit the Cardano Community of SPO's with a verifiably documented understanding of the risks and hazards, which will determine the level of capability needed to address those risks. This path allows us to effectively estimate the network's current risk and resiliency, identify gaps, and justify the approach for addressing them through tools like the Cardano Heartbeat CEM.

2. Mass notification system

Similar to tools like Mellium, participation in the Cardano Heartbeat CEM will grow into the immediate notification of emerging threats like hurricanes, civil unrest, or natural disasters near-critical data centers and bare metal SPOs alike, as well as impulse disaster notifications like seismic activity or cyber terrorism.

3. Incident management/recovery

Based upon provided Risk Analysis Data and Mass Notification Participation, SPOs can now prepare for legitimate threats in their area of operation. Ideally, resiliency options are implemented pre-incident and tested for operability.

Knowing the risks, networking with SPOs, and developing best practice protocols will allow stronger responses to active incidents and highly expedited recovery time through pre-designed failover systems and tested alternatives.

Deliverables (short-term, 3-months from funding)

• THIRA-SRC: Threat & Hazard Identification & Risk Assessment & Stakeholder Preparedness Review by Certified TEEX&FEMA professional.

• Cardano Stake Pool Resilience and Security Survey Quiz.

• After completion, the pool operator will be able to download or have emailed, a checklist and information on how to better secure their operations.

• Develop SPO disaster recovery plans drafted for community peer review.

• APIs to gather ad-hoc data feeds for information about:

• Cardano nodes and network health

• Weather Data

• Critical Infastructure

• Natural Disaster warnings

• Cybersecurity threats

• Marketing/education campaign to bring awareness to potential stake pool threats/risk, stake pool resiliency, and disaster/emergency recovery.

• Establish open-source GitBook for document retention

• Establish open-source GitHub for project development

• BETA Version - Cardano Heartbeat CEM Dashboard Web app for a selected number of Cardano stake pool operators.

Deliverables (long-term 6-months from funding):

• SPO Warning/disaster alert message system
• Public release of Cardano Heartbeat CEM dashboard with real-time data visualizations and interactive capabilities. This will display risk/hazards to the Cardano Network and SPOs in a nice user interface.
• Cybersecurity, hardware stress testing, and protocol testing using a private testnet
• Finalized SPO Disaster Recovery Plans published freely to the public.

Long Term Considerations (Beyond Funding Period, 12- months from funding):

• Trustless Emergency SPO cluster with automated failover methods via smart contracts.

• Validation Tokens/NFT for SPOs who meet a defined set of standards for Stake Pool operation.

• Wiki for documentation retention and moving away from paid services.

• Future Funding Options (dependent on adoption and future development)

• Project Catalyst

• Donations to the project

Detailed Budget:

Data Aggregation and Risk analysis - $12,000

Marketing and Education - $4,000

Hardware/software - $6,000

Web Development - $9,000

Web hosting services - $500

App Design & Integration - $8,500

https://armada-alliance.com/status

https://armada-alliance.com/blogs/rpi-resiliency-sbc-otg-blog

https://github.com/armada-alliance/armada-ping

https://github.com/mellium

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ESufjRxAyI