Indexer Requirements

Find out what it takes to be an Indexer in The Graph Network

Overview

Key Requirements for Indexers

1. Capital Requirements

The entry barrier for becoming an Indexer is relatively high as Indexers are required to stake a minimum of 100k GRT. In the ideal case, Indexers are able to stake more GRT than the required minimal amount – especially in the early stages of the network. During the ramping up of the network, the 100k minimum required stake could prove very challenging to break-even on because of the costs of running a node. It is therefore encouraged to closely calculate if your expected indexing returns exceed the costs of operation if you intend to index with a smaller allocation.

Costs of Operating an Indexer Node

• Minimum stake of 100k GRT

• Infrastructure costs

• Operational costs

• Manpower costs

2. Hardware requirements

What are the hardware requirements to operate a node in The Graph Network?

The hardware requirements are split into four different setups to better cater to the varying needs of node operators. This gives interested Indexers a better overview of the requirements for their specific setup.

Setup	CPUs	Memory in GB	Disk in TBs	VMs (CPUs)	VMs (in GB)
Small	4	8	1	4	16
Standard	8	30	1	12	48
Medium	16	64	2	32	64
Large	32	468	3.5	48	184

3. Infrastructure Requirements

What infrastructure is needed to operate as an Indexer in The Graph Network? Let’s have a look at it in the following! The central piece of infrastructure of an Indexer is The Graph Node. It serves a variety of different functions, such as extracting and loading subgraph data as well as monitoring Ethereum. The extracted data is served as a GraphQL API by the Node.

Components of an Indexer’s setup

• PostgreSQL database- Subgraph data is stored in the PostgreSQL database of the Graph Node. The DB is also used by the indexer agent and service to store indexing rules and state channel data.

• Ethereum endpoint- For the exposure of an Ethereum JSON-RPC API. Depending on the subgraph, different Ethereum client capabilities will be required such as tracing API and archive mode.

• Indexer agent- Responsible for enabling an Indexer’s interactions on chain such as registering on the network, managing subgraph deployments and managing allocations.

• Indexer service- Required for handling the external communication with the network. It passes query requests from gateways onto a Graph Node and shares indexing statuses.

• Prometheus metrics server- This is where metrics are logged by The Graph Node and Indexer components.

4. Required skills

The best hardware and infrastructure is of no use without first-hand experiences in running a node. An Indexer in The Graph Network needs to be comfortable in running VM environments via SSH or operating their own hardware. Aside from that, Indexers should have experience with Linux as well as validators and/or should be keen to learn.

Check this page for more information: https://thegraph.academy/indexers/indexer-requirements/