Building upon our earlier blog announcement and our commitment to simplify communication within Bacalhau, we are deprecating libp2p and moving forward with NATS as our default networking solution.
Why the Change?
Continuous improvement is a goal for us at Bacalhau and we’ve made this change as a result of our efforts to make connectivity and networking as seamless as possible for you, the users. After exploring all of the available technologies, NATS emerged as the preferred networking solution for Bacalhau with its tailored features suited for high performance communication with edge and distributed systems.
What helped us make that decision? First off, NATS simplifies everything. For starters, thanks to its subject-based addressing, we can greatly reduce the amount of work that goes into configuration. Plus, you get easier dynamic deployments as compute nodes no longer need to be directly accessible by orchestrators - Scalable, Distributed setups are a NATS specialty! This opens up Bacalhau for global clusters and multi-orchestrator setups in the future. A big step in our promise to execute anywhere and everywhere.
With NATS, the operational overhead on your compute nodes is reduced and compute nodes can easily switch between orchestrators as needed. Whether you're working on a small local project or tackling something on a global scale, this improves efficiency and enables better reliability and network management.
Security is a priority at Bacalhau and our choice of NATS reflects that. It offers flexible security and authentication mechanisms enabling you to encrypt communications within your Bacalhau network and safeguard your data in transit.
What Does This Mean for You?
With NATS as the primary network protocol, setting up Bacalhau becomes simpler, and public access requirements are centralized to orchestrator nodes. Newly deployed and redeployed Bacalhau networks, using the latest version, will immediately reap the benefits of this protocol.
The utilization of libp2p will gradually phase out from Bacalhau networks. Future versions of Bacalhau will provide warnings against its use, eventually removing it as an option altogether.
NATS simplifies configurations, making cluster setup easier.
It offers enhanced scalability for projects of all sizes, from local to global.
NATS is efficient, reducing overhead and streamlining operations.
With NATS, security is top-notch, with encrypted connections and extensive authentication options.
Future Growth with NATS
You can expect better global operations as NATS empowers Bacalhau to function effectively in your diverse environments, from local deployments to international networks. Bacalhau is now better positioned to provide resilient and adaptable distributed computing solutions for your Big Data and Distributed Edge computing use cases.
How to Reach Out to Us
Do you have questions or feedback about this transition? Our team is here to help!
Join our general Slack channels for discussions and debugging.
Submit your issues directly to our GitHub repository.
Attend our biweekly office hours for live support and guidance.
How to Get Involved
We're looking for help in various areas. If you're interested in helping, there are several ways to contribute. Please reach out to us at any of the following locations.
Commercial Support
While Bacalhau is open-source software, the Bacalhau binaries go through the security, verification, and signing build process lovingly crafted by Expanso. You can read more about the difference between open-source Bacalhau and commercially supported Bacalhau in our FAQ. If you would like to use our pre-built binaries and receive commercial support, please contact us!