High-level tracking issue for general bandwidth optimization efforts. This issue can be expanded over time.

At present (late 2022), Tendermint-based networks consume large quantities of bandwidth, which results in high operational costs for larger networks. We aim to explore ways of bringing down bandwidth consumption while maintaining correctness, with the aim of reducing these costs.

• Release v0.34.25 with the changes from consensus: correctly save reference to previous height precommits #9760
  • First implement e2e: Enable multi-version testing in nightly QA and for releases #9928 to validate that it's compatible with existing networks
• Investigate what kind of data is consuming the most bandwidth
  • rfc 27: report on bandwidth usage within Tendermint #9706 (Rendered RFC)
  • Pinpoint inefficiencies in block, vote and transaction propagation #9922
• Implement quick fixes and improvements to reduce bandwidth consumption (this task will be updated using the results of Pinpoint inefficiencies in block, vote and transaction propagation #9922 )
  • consensus: correctly save reference to previous height precommits #9760 (to be released in v0.34.25)
• Investigate protocol change options for more substantial bandwidth optimization
  • Investigate how to optimize block proposal propagation. #9923
  • Investigate how to optimize vote propagation. #9924
  • Investigate how to optimize transaction propagation. #9925
• Implementation of chosen optimizations (this task will be refined using as input the results of Investigate how to optimize block proposal propagation. #9923, Investigate how to optimize vote propagation. #9924, Investigate how to optimize transaction propagation. #9925)
  • Propose ADR for protocol changes
  • Update specs for protocol changes
  • Implement protocol changes
  • Update docs for protocol changes

References

• Bandwidth Improvements #9575 (efforts toward bandwidth improvements in Q4-2022)