March 2021 Release Plan

Owned by Piotr Dziubecki
Last updated: Feb 23, 2021
2 min read

Reference

Document status

complete

Release status

in Dev

Milestones

Start date

Feb 8, 2021 

Release

Mar 8, 2021 

Stakeholders

@Medha Parlikar

CTO

 

@Mrinal Manohar

CEO

 

 

 

Development team

Program manager

Project Manager

Engineering Lead

SRE

@Medha Parlikar

@Piotr Dziubecki

@Ed Hastings (Deactivated)

@Joe Sacher



Marketing team

Marketing lead

Content owner

@Matthew Iles (Unlicensed)

@Everett M (Unlicensed)



Release Overview

Simple Overview

Release 21.03 marks the first Mainnet version of the Casper protocol.

Detailed Overview

This release will focus on performance and hardening improvements. The protocol will also complete the integration with a custody provider during this release cycle.

Dead validators (offline validators) will be ejected (forcibly unbonded) if they do not send messages for an era. We will also deliver the features that support social consensus - the ability for validators to restart the network from a non-genesis global state root hash.

We will launch the final Casper testnet with this version of the software as well as Mainnet.

Protocol Features:

  • Restart/Crash Recovery/Upgrades/Social Consensus

  • Fast Sync

  • Block Header Structure

  • Dead validator Ejection.

  • The Auction contract will be enhanced to include the unlock schedule to be compliant with the VFTA

  • Push rewards to bid_purses (automatic re-staking of rewards)

Operations & Monitoring

  • Grafana dashboard for Rust node

  • Load and performance testing

  • Explainer guide on metrics - key metrics, what they are, why they matter.

Ecosystem

  • We will update our documentation at docs.casperlabs.io

  • Provide update for JavaScript SDK

  • Provide tools to generate Casper addresses.

We will create video tutorial content for the following:

  • Deploying a token & calling it to send tokens to an account.

  • Deploying a contract and then upgrading it. Showing the change in version.

    • Walk through of code to upgrade.

Tickets for this Release

Features

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Ecosystem Features

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Key Consensus Deliverables

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Key Node Deliverables

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Key Contract Runtime Deliverables

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Ecosystem Product Updates

  • Event Capturing Service, Event Store

  • Javascript SDK

  • Clarity supporting Rust Node

  • Enhancements to Signer

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SRE

  • Network Health Monitoring

Documentation

  • Updated dApp developer guide for Rust Node

Defects Fixed

 

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Metric for tracking the success:

What is special about this release?

 

For dApp Developers 

For Node Operators

Are we doing something differently? If so, why are we doing it this way?



Before these features were available, what were developers able to do?



After these features launch, what will developers be able (and not able) to do?

Description of release packaging

Release packaging will include:

  • Debian package 

  • Docker image

  • Brew packages

  • RPM package

  • tar.gz file

Where do developers go to learn more and get started?

  • At release, links to installation packages and relevant documentation is available at 

  • Packages available at: http://github.com/CasperLabs/releases

  • Docs available on GitHub. http://docs.casperlabs.io

  •  

Where will bugs be filed?

Github - part of the public release.

Where do developers go for support? What is the SLA? Who is on point?