Easy Node Deployment - [Revelar]

If funded this will be under an MIT License and available to the Cardano community via Github, as well as under Open Source resources for developers under the Revelar.co website.

Currently, deploying a Cardano node and setting up a development environment can be a bit complicated, especially for newer developers (or new to Cardano) that we want to encourage in the ecosystem. While spinning up a local Cardano node can be as simple as running the installer or loading the docker image, it's easy to get lost in the flood of information and find yourself wasting hours compiling the source yourself. Even then this is only a single piece of the equation as developers generally want to do more than simply use the cli directly.

For very skilled developers, setting up a new Cardano development environment might take an hour; for less experienced developers these questions can lead to hours, if not days, of effort spent. A guided installation would make this a smooth experience reducing overall startup time significantly for junior and senior developers alike.

We have personally gone through this process using the common Github resources that exist, and IOHK guided documentation for setting up our own nodes for NFT purposes. Our goal and deliverable is to create an open source public git repo that can be cloned and ran from source, or downloaded from a variety of package managers. (npm, apt, brew, any others in the future with community requests)

It's a guided script designed to be run from the command line that walks you through successfully creating your development environment.

Measurables (Auditability)

As defined by the challenge, our goal is to focus on three key metrics over a 3, 6, 12 month period for the Revelar's open source contribution to the community. After reviewing where this best fit, we were advised that the Sustainable SPO challenge would be best to measure the impact of this open source tool.

1. Easiest to track is how many forks of our github repo are created.

2. While a fork isn't necessarily indicative of usage, we are working on partnering with existing SPO's to share the resource and report back on their own usage by engaging in the repo.

3. Finally we conduct a survey at each 3, 6, 12 month marker to check in on how many SPO's are *still* using the deployment. These results will be automatically added to the repo itself. 

Timeline (Audibility)

Having gone through most of the available material and spent some time testing our own node deployments, creating this structure should be fairly straightforward. Timeline is accounting for part time work each week (5 - 20 hours/wk/developer)

Post funding timeline:

- Weeks 1 & 2: Create the Open source script (Linux, Powershell, and JS) & Docker Image for local deployment on either the testnet or mainnet

- Weeks 3 & 4: Include SSH for external devices, setup monitoring / visualization tools (Prometheus)

- Weeks 5 & 6: Guide on security best practices (if surplus time exists work on .NET and Python quickstart Templates)

Public delivery by: April 4th, 2022

Costs & Use of Funds (Auditability)

The funds used in the development of this open source tool will be used to pay developers. We will be paying any cloud service costs to document the deployment out of pocket.

Development hours: 60

$5,000/60 hours = $83/hr for Dev Ops

While risks exist in scoping out development work, we feel that this is a valuable tool for the entire ecosystem (as well as ourselves). The primary way to review the work done will be via the github project.

Proposer: Jason Toevs

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-toevs/

- Twitter: @JasonToevs

- Discord: ₳ussieGingersnap | DUO#1037

Team: Revelar | NFT Game Engine

Experienced team of cloud architects and full stack software engineers bringing the quality of enterprise grade systems to the emerging NFT & Cardano ecosystem. We are gamers at heart and want to see NFT's & game tokens replace loot boxes and dlc's. Take back ownership of your games.

Jason Toevs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-toevs/

- Technical Founder, Plutus Pioneer, Tokenomics

Benjamin Beer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-beer/

- Blockchain Engineer, Cybersecurity, Game Theory Design

Jacob Chrisitan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/designerfourteen/

- Design Lead, Community, Marketing

Thomas Ford: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-ford-18b035a1/

- Azure Cloud Architect, Database developer, Project Manager

Greg Ervin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-ervin/

- Sr. Engineer, Dev Ops, CI/CD Pipelines

Alexa Varady: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexav/

- Full Stack Developer, Computer Science Educator, Masters in C.S.