HF27 Hived Api Node processing transactions
Earlier today HF26 smoothly and silently moved to HF27 - and imagine the majority of Hive users were not even aware it happened.
Why another Hard Fork?
Hard Fork 26 went smoothly, especially considering some of the major changes it introduced like One Block Irreversibility. Some minor bugs did however slip through, and the only way to correctly address them required a consensus change - that is all nodes Witness or Api to be running the new code - and the only way to ensure that is with a Hard Fork.
For the most part the update just required installing the updated Hived, stopping the existing one and starting the new one. For my API node https://api.c0ff33a.uk it proved to be a little longer as the HF26 Hived was a little bit stubborn about shutting down. So I had around two hours down time yesterday on the API node - but it is fully up and running again now on v1.27.0 Hived.
Looking into the Mirrornet
One of the main reasons why a few bugs made it into HF26 proved to be a lack of backup Witnesses running Mirrornet servers - the mirrornet is a running duplicate of the main Hive blockchain - of course all transactions and rewards are fake - but it gives developers the chance to test new code and see if it could cause issues in the main Blockchain - before actually committing to it. You can read more about the Mirrornet in GTG's posts @gtg/hive-mirrornet-a-k-a-fakenet-is-up-and-running
I have set up my own Mirrornet node, it's a tight squeeze with the hardware I have available but if it completes replaying and runs I hope it will provide a useful asset in the testing of future Hive updates.
What do you do as a Witness to justify voting for you?
Realistically this is a question anyone should ask themselves before voting for any Witness - after all a Witness vote is backing that Witness with your staked Hive Power, and ideally you should be using that vote in the hope the Witness you vote for will help to contribute to increasing the market value of the Hive you hold.
https://wallet.hive.blog/~witnesses
You can vote for Witnesses on you favourite front end, and have upto 30 votes to give. Some use all, some use a few and others use none. Some start at the top and work down, which is fine as the Top 20 are there for a reason - they are the major decision makers for how the blockchain will move forward, so for me at least it makes sense to vote for at least 10 in the Top Twenty you feel are contributing most to improving and growing Hive Blockchain.
Your votes are personal, you have to decide who to vote based on how active you think they are in contributing to the Blockchain. Delegated Proof of Stake ensures the Witnesses with the largest Hive Power Staked Voters get the highest ranking.
What do I do to justify my Witness votes?
I run three Witness nodes for my Witnesses 
I run https://api.c0ff33a.uk which is a full HF27 HAF api node, running on a paid for Privex server - which has been my biggest cost investment in the Hive Blockchain infrastructure.
I also run https://rpc.c0ff33a.uk which is separate to the above server, it's slower but still a handy option for app and dapp development. It is using the hardware I used to run api.c0ff33a.uk before paying for the more powerful server from Privex.
It might be easy to ask why the Hive Blockchain needs many different API nodes, especially as most front end users just use the default the front end chooses. The answer should however be obvious - no matter how powerful and fast one single API node could be - if every post, comment, upvote, reward claim, hive transfer, hbd transfer, Splinterlands transaction and all the other transactions that occur all the time went through it then it would slow to a crawl - maybe even crash under the load. More API nodes give greater capacity and speed up the Hive Blockchain - along with the improvements from HF26 and HF27 Hive Blockchain is blazing fast - and because most of the ways you access it automatically detect if the API it is using is running slow and switch to another - your experience remains flawless without you even having to do anything. But you can choose to change the API node you use to access Hive Blockchain - and it is worth doing - the most popular get hammered while others are under utilised - so think about switching to a different node - if it seems slower or times out a lot switch again - it's relatively easy to do.
And of course do not forget to vote for Proposals
Just when you thought I had exhausted the votes you can use your staked Hive Power for, there is something else just as important - in fact maybe more than Witness Votes.
https://wallet.hive.blog/proposals
Proposals allow developers to request funding for new projects on the Hive Blockchain, they make clear the work they intend to do and also the amount of HBD they will need to complete. Proposals will only be approved if they get sufficient votes from Staked Hive Holders - again like Witness votes the greater the amount of staked Hive the voter has the bigger the influence their vote has.
It is really important to get involved and look down the proposals list regularly and vote for any proposals you think will help Hive to evolve - and increase your Stake value. Remember for some developers your vote could be the difference between them getting funded, or their incredible idea never reaching it's potential - you have the opportunity to vote on proposals and it costs you absolutely nothing.
If you got this far thank you for reading my post, however you enjoy using and being part of the Hive Blockchain - remember you have votes to contribute - make use of them.
Active HIVE Witness alongside 
We run five Hive servers, two Witness Servers, Hivemind Instance, Full Account History Node HAF HF26
https://api.c0ff33a.uk and backup https://rpc.c0ff33a.uk our full API servers to use with your dapps and front ends.
https://hiveblog.c0ff33a.uk Our own condenser front end, exclusively using our own API server to access the Hive Blockchain. For the best experience use on Brave Browser with Hive Keychain plugin.
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