The Hedera mirror node software, during its alpha phase of development, was run by Hedera, exchanges, and other third-parties (such as network explorers like HashScan, Hashlog, & DragonGlass, and auditing tools like Armanino's TrustExplorer). These third parties had express permission to access real-time and historical network data buckets in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) in order to run their services.
Starting today, we’re happy to announce that everyone now has access to real-time and historical raw data files for the Hedera testnet and mainnet via public AWS and GCP buckets. Early access users experienced the brunt of early mirror node software — they provided Hedera with invaluable feedback, which brought us to beta and public availability today.
Access to these buckets enables developers to configure and deploy their very own beta Hedera mirror node, as well as analyze network data using a brand-new Hedera-ETL software tool that works with Google BigQuery.
In addition, everyone now has the ability to independently verify the authenticity of Hedera mainnet and testnet data. This can all be done without needing any permission from Hedera — an important step in our path towards a fully decentralized network.
Found below is information on and setup instructions for:
- Open source mirror node (beta) software, including one-click deploy on GCP
- Real-time and historical network data from buckets in GCP & AWS
- Hedera-ETL (extract, transform, load) scripts for use with Google BigQuery
Open source mirror node (beta) & one-click deploy in GCP
The beta Hedera Mirror Node software exposes Hedera network transaction records and account balances generated by the Hedera mainnet or testnet via a REST & gRPC API.
Found below are a few documented ways in which anyone can deploy and configure a Hedera mirror node:
- One-click deploy from the GCP Marketplace (easiest)
- Using Docker
- Using Helm and Kubernetes
- Using Ansible, Ubuntu, & Docker in GCP
Beta mirror nodes vs full mirror nodes
The beta version of the Hedera mirror node software requires the use of public buckets in GCP or AWS to retrieve network data. These buckets record every transaction record, balance (every account and its balance) and events coming from every node on the Hedera mainnet and testnet.
At a high level, the mirror node software, prior to its ingestion of data to the mirror node database, validates every file and signature from AWS or GCP buckets to ensure their validity. It does so by checking:
- That a sufficient number of nodes have signed identical files with matching hashes.
- The chain hash to ensure no files are missing.
- The address book, all the way back to its genesis.