As a third-generation decentralized cloud storage protocol, Cumulus Encrypted Storage System (CESS) is not only the first blockchain network to support large-scale commercial storage, but also a secure, efficient, open source, and scalable decentralized storage network. In the CESS protocol, storage is highly valued and regarded as a type of resource. In the CESS ecosystem, users who need storage are regarded as "consumers" of the resource, while the four types of nodes in the network are efficient and reliable "suppliers".

CESS's blockchain network plays a crucial role as "scheduler" and "notary", responsible for managing and optimizing the storage resources of producers, thereby ensuring that consumers can receive unified, efficient and convenient storage services. This article will focus on the four nodes as "suppliers" and explain in detail their functions, roles and participation methods in the CESS network.

The CESS network follows the principle of decentralization when running and requires the participation, operation and maintenance of multiple roles. In the early stages of network creation, four main nodes are needed:

- Storage node: Mainly responsible for providing space, storing data, and calculating proofs.

- Consensus node: Mainly responsible for consensus election, transaction execution, block verification and generation in the CESS network.

- Cache node: Responsible for caching frequently accessed storage data so that users can retrieve data more quickly.

- Retrieval node: Responsible for retrieving target data in the network for users, including obtaining data from cache nodes or storage nodes.

The four types of nodes perform their own duties and cooperate with each other in the CESS network level according to their different functions. Among them, consensus nodes and storage nodes form the storage resource layer to maintain the integrity of data objects. Cache nodes and retrieval nodes form the content distribution layer to ensure the availability of data objects. As for CESS's bottom-up multi-layer network architecture design, we have introduced it in a series of articles detailing the CESS mechanism. If you are interested in learning more, please scroll to the end of the article and click on the relevant links. Next, we will continue to introduce the four main nodes in the CESS network.

storage node

Any machine that is willing to sell idle storage resources can join the CESS network and receive incentives by providing verifiable storage space. The space can be divided into "idle" and "service". The idle space is filled by the nodes themselves, and only storage data from users can be stored in the service space. Idle space is managed by the CESS network by default and is ready to be replaced by service data at any time. Storage incentives are distributed in proportion to the storage computing power of the entire network. Therefore, storage nodes are mainly responsible for providing space, storing data, and calculating proofs.

Participate in becoming a storage node (Storage Node Manual): https://docs.cess.cloud/cess-build-book/storage-miner

Consensus node

As mentioned above, the consensus node is mainly responsible for consensus election, transaction execution, block verification and generation in the CESS network. The consensus node is generally divided into two modules: chain node and TEE Worker.

On the one hand, the chain node module is responsible for maintaining the world state of the blockchain network, including:

1) Record various system source information such as storage nodes and storage data;

2) Record the verification status of the storage certificate;

3) Data cleaning and recovery.

On the other hand, the TEE Worker module is the "data authentication station" in the CESS network. All user data can only be regarded as "service data" by the network after being authenticated by TEE Worker, and the computing power will be counted and stored. At the same time, TEE Worker has the ability to authenticate storage nodes to fill data. TEE Worker needs to support TEE (the first version is adapted to SGX).

Consensus nodes play an important role in participating in consensus elections and packaging blocks in the CESS network. All consensus nodes have the following characteristics:

Record and store all transaction results and status changes
Distributed communication between nodes forms a peer-to-peer network
Consensus algorithm that ensures chain data security and continuous growth
Calculates hashes for blocks and cryptographic algorithms used to sign and verify transactions
The consensus node is developed using Polkadot's open source Substrate framework, which has natural advantages.

Participate in becoming a consensus node (Consensus Node Manual): https://docs.cess.cloud/cess-build-book/consensus-miner

Retrieve node

This node provides data retrieval services to users. Whether it is from the cache node or the storage node, the retrieval node can quickly find the data that users need and provide it to them. The retrieval node provides data retrieval services to the network and participates in the CESS network by responding to Get requests for data retrieved by users. After receiving the request to read data, the retrieval node will search for the storage node with the best comprehensive performance to improve the efficiency of reading data.

The difference from storage nodes is that retrieval nodes do not need to provide mortgage, submit storage data, or provide storage proof.

Different from consensus nodes, retrieval nodes do not need to package transactions or verify transactions.

How to participate: Will be updated soon.

cache node

Cache nodes are specifically responsible for caching data that is accessed frequently, allowing users to retrieve the information they need faster. After the CESS network matures, as a large number of storage users join the CESS network, a large amount of data will be stored in the network, and the performance of uploading data, retrieving data, and downloading data will be challenged. For this purpose, the CESS network is designed with cache nodes. Cache nodes assist market transactions and quickly push data to users, consensus nodes and storage nodes through data indexing and data distribution. In order to form an effective incentive, miners operating cache nodes will receive mining rewards. How to participate: Will be updated soon.

Conclusion

In general, the CESS distributed storage system ensures data security through its carefully designed four main nodes: storage nodes, consensus nodes, cache nodes, and retrieval nodes, which respectively form the storage resource layer and content distribution layer in the CESS network. Availability and integrity provide users with a stable and efficient decentralized storage solution.

Understand CESS network architecture

Detailed explanation of CESS mechanism (1): multi-layer network architecture design

Detailed explanation of the CESS mechanism (2): Blockchain layer and randomly selected rotation (R²S) consensus node mechanism

Detailed explanation of CESS mechanism (3): storage, content distribution network and multi-copy recoverable storage proof

Detailed explanation of CESS mechanism (4): Application layer