Since September 16th, 2024 we have chosen Google GCP as our new cloud service provider for running our Cardano stake pool nodes. The main reason to choose GCP over Digital Ocean is the static IP reservation. Other reason being its flexibility in customizing VPS as per requirement. Snapshot data size is less and it takes less time to create. New instances creation time is also less than DO. Firewall management is better in GCP. We have kept DO as our backup cloud service provider. Node snapshots in DO can be used for droplet creation in no time as when required.

Rocketpool Saturn 0 upgrade happened on 28 October 2024, 00:00 UTC. Now you can create ETH only minipools with no RPL collateral. Details here. Expectation from Saturn 1 and 2 upgrade is that there will be 4ETH mini pools in Saturn 1. 1.5ETH mini pools after two LEB4s in Saturn 2. LEB (Low Eth bond). Saturn 1 upgrade is expected to happen on July 2025. We will start creating minipools as a SaaS provider after Saturn 1 upgrade. We are yet to know what changes will be implemented with Saturn 1 upgrade. Till then we will practice on testnet to get familiarised with the new features of Saturn 1. .

As we have low delegation support to our pool we are not minting blocks in every epoch. Running a stake pool on a cloud server is expensive but at the same time, it's reliable. So when block minting is not on schedule we will run our stake pool in-house to cut down the VPS bill and when block minting is scheduled we will again move back to a cloud server for its reliability. By adopting hybrid approach we can run our stake more efficiently and cost-effectively. When block minting on schedule our pool runs on three servers, core and Frankfurt relay on cloud and India relay in-house. We chose relay cloud server at Frankfurt for better connectivity and avoid propagation delay. When block minting not on schedule it runs on two servers core and relay in-house. As delegation/stake to our pool increases and we mint blocks more frequently we will continue to stay on cloud VPS for its reliability and maintain an uptime of 99.99%. Digital Ocean will remain our preferred cloud service provider as usual. We prefer Digital Ocean due to its flexibility and reliability.