Node Monitoring Service (NMS) Officially Launches at Chainlink SmartCon 2024

The past three and a half years have been an exciting journey for us. LinkRiver grew from a community organization to one of the largest and best-performing Chainlink node operators in the entire network. Through our full commitment to the Chainlink ecosystem, we became the fastest growing node operator in recent years in terms of new integrations.

A crucial component of our success is our comprehensive monitoring system, which we have continuously refined over the years. This has a direct impact on the performance of our infrastructure and enables targeted, progressive collaboration with the Chainlink team.

What Is the Node Monitoring Service (NMS)?

We are excited to announce the official launch of our unique solution designed to dramatically simplify monitoring Chainlink node infrastructure, the Node Monitoring Service (NMS).

It is the only all-in-one monitoring platform for Chainlink node operators, saving users resources through streamlined configuration, customized dashboards and cutting-edge alerting solutions.

In this release article, we share important details and provide valuable insights into the product and explain why we believe it will make a game-changing difference for all organizations using NMS.

Right from the start of our node operations, we realized that infrastructure monitoring is one of the most important elements. There is nothing worse for a node operator than losing performance and reputation due to not having comprehensive observability or missing incidents due to suboptimal alerting. That’s why we dedicate the expertise of an entire team to improving our own monitoring system, which reliably covers all infrastructure components 24/7, 365 days a year. Based on this need in our daily business, we decided to bootstrap NMS, a Monitoring as a Service solution. We are proud to finally introduce the community to the first all-in-one monitoring solution of its kind, designed to save Chainlink node operators a lot of time and effort while providing them with the greatest possible visibility into their growing infrastructure.

Rob Zimmermann (Co-founder, LinkRiver)

NMS provides its users with a cutting-edge monitoring system, whose dashboards are continuously updated by LinkRiver to keep up with all developments: new Chainlink products and network integrations, changed or new metrics, evolving KPIs and much more.

Every node operator knows how much work and effort goes into building and maintaining a comprehensive, scalable monitoring stack. We believe that, given the increasing responsibility of the Chainlink network and our key role as node operators, it is our duty to ensure reliable monitoring at all times. We see the positive impact that serious, proactive monitoring has on node performance. So why not pool resources and make our battle-tested system available to others?

Irakli Gachechiladze
(Corporate Affairs Manager, LinkRiver)

We are proud that this is exactly what is happening now as part of Chainlink SmartCon 2024. The only thing users have to do is configure their monitoring effortlessly in the NMS web app. This process has never been faster and users immediately benefit from all the advantages: customized dashboards, fine-tuned interactive alerts, faster understanding of complex problems, no more maintenance effort and overall an all-encompassing and reliable monitoring system.

How Does NMS Work?

NMS is compatible with industry standard tools such as Prometheus and Loki and provides node operators with a streamlined approach to push their infrastructure performance data to the platform for visualization, alerting and more. The easy-to-use, intuitive web app makes setup a breeze and enables easy, collaborative management of your monitoring stack.

At the heart of the service are 25 dashboards, which are tailored to the moving needs of Chainlink node operators. They cover every component of a Chainlink node environment and have been refined to facilitate daily tasks and recurring challenges as a node operator.

NMS users particularly benefit from the fact that all dashboards are updated in the background so that they always correspond to the latest changes in the underlying client software. As soon as a new Chainlink product is released or a new network is integrated, they will be added to NMS so users can install them with just one click.

Core Features of the Platform

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The Host Configurator

The Host Configurator is a crucial feature of the monitoring platform. It automates the setup of local data scraping tools on the hosts of the services to be monitored. Furthermore, the monitoring configuration of all Chainlink nodes, External Adapters, RPC nodes and other services can be administered in a central, intuitive UI.

If services are added to an already configured host or if changes need to be applied, this can also be done centrally via the Host Configurator. In this way, collaborative work in the area of ​​monitoring is made easier for node operators as team members benefit from the simplified graphical user interface.

Node operators who already have data scraping tools installed can connect them to NMS through a simple configuration adjustment.

The Dashboard Store

Tailor-made dashboards are the visual heart of NMS, where users can interact with the performance data collected from their monitored services. They visualize every crucial metric of Chainlink nodes and related services and are built upon years of dedication to the Chainlink ecosytem. Currently, users can choose from 25 unique dashboards in the Dashboard Store, and the number will continue to grow.

The best part is that NMS users can install any dashboard with one click and then sit back. New dashboards are added and existing ones are updated to reflect the latest Chainlink releases and integrations, ensuring node operators always stay up to date.

The Alert Store

A monitoring system can only be as reliable at detecting and resolving incidents as its alerting stack. With NMS, users can install alerts with one click to never miss an incident again. All alerts have been continually fine-tuned by LinkRiver over the years to meet the evolving needs of Chainlink node operators.

In order to categorize alerts as helpfully as possible, we have currently packaged a total of 35 alerts into 8 bundles. Each bundle forms an evaluation group and can be further configured by the user according to their needs.

Node operators can receive notifications in their familiar channels or use the OnCall integration, which makes alerting an interactive, collaborative experience. The creation of oncall schedules is also supported, so that teams can ensure full, reliable coverage around the clock.

The Dashboard Platform

The Dashboard Platform is the visualization interface of NMS. The collected logs and metrics are visualized there in a structured and high-performance manner. All panels and dashboards are designed to help node operators gain the greatest visibility across their entire infrastructure in the shortest possible time.

User Management, Documentation and Support

In addition to the core components, NMS comes with extensive user management. This allows teams to use a collaborative monitoring strategy in which different permission levels can be applied. In addition to the Admin role, Editor and View users can be created for an organization, allowing a granular distribution of areas of responsibility.

Of course, all service components are extensively documented and users can rely on fast, competent support.

The Impact of NMS Usage on Chainlink Node Reputation

We at LinkRiver are proud to be among the leading Chainlink node operators. Due to our expertise, we have been selected to participate in all Chainlink products secured by node operators. Starting about three years ago with a single supported network integration for Market and Data Feeds, we currently participate in a large number of decentralized oracle networks on about 30 chains for 6 different Chainlink products, including the groundbreaking Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) and Data Streams.

Particularly in light of Chainlink’s recent announcements and the expected acceleration of additional infrastructure needs, we believe a high level of focus from node operators is critical.

As mentioned above, our team is convinced that a large part of the success is due to our comprehensive, proactive monitoring and our strong focus on the Chainlink ecosystem. By identifying emerging issues early and leveraging our fine-tuned alerts, we have more resources available to continuously improve node performance and scale our infrastructure. The in-depth examination of relevant client software also enables solution-oriented collaboration with the Chainlink team and like-minded node operators.

Strengthening Chainlink’s Network Resilience: Extending Our Monitoring Capabilities to Other Node Operators

Since a central part of our corporate identity has always been to contribute further to the antifragility of the Chainlink network, we think it is time to make our monitoring-related work available to other node operators. Through close communication with various teams over the years, we have a clear picture of the challenges that Chainlink node operators must continually overcome.

Benefits of NMS from a User Perspective

Listen to what Thorsten Behrens from Galaxy Digital, an absolute OG of the Web3 infrastructure scene, thinks about NMS.

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See for Yourself and Test NMS

If you think your current monitoring solution can be upgraded or you simply want to compare it with our system, you are welcome to take a look at NMS yourself. Because we want to offer you the best possible, customized experience, the number of free trial seats is limited at the beginning.

Simply schedule a call with our team so we can get started and take your Chainlink node monitoring and performance to the next level.