docs: made the Nodes section more about Production Nodes

docs/source/index.rst

@@ -9,7 +9,6 @@ Table of Contents
 
    introduction
    quickstart
-   node-cluster-fed
    cloud-deployment-starter-templates/index
    nodes/index
    dev-and-test/index

docs/source/nodes/index.rst

@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ Production Node Assumptions, Components & Requirements
 .. toctree::
    :maxdepth: 1
 
+   node-assumptions
    node-components
    node-requirements
    setup-run-node

docs/source/nodes/node-assumptions.md

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+# Production Node Assumptions
+
+If you're not sure what we mean by a BigchainDB *node*, *cluster*, *federation*, or *production node*, then see [the section in the Introduction where we defined those terms](../introduction.html#some-basic-vocabulary).
+
+We make some assumptions about production nodes:
+
+1. **Each production node is set up and managed by an experienced professional system administrator (or a team of them).**
+
+2. Each production node in a federation's cluster is managed by a different person or team.
+
+Because of the first assumption, we don't provide a detailed cookbook explaining how to secure a server, or other things that a sysadmin should know. (We do provide some [starter templates](../cloud-deployment-starter-templates/index.html), but those are just a starting point.)
+
+

docs/source/nodes/node-components.md

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# Node Components
+# Production Node Components
 
 A BigchainDB node must include, at least:
 
@@ -7,10 +7,17 @@ A BigchainDB node must include, at least:
 
 When doing development and testing, it's common to install both on the same machine, but in a production environment, it may make more sense to install them on separate machines.
 
-In a production environment, a BigchainDB node can have several other components, including:
+In a production environment, a BigchainDB node should have several other components, including:
 
-* nginx or similar, as a reverse proxy and/or load balancer for the web server
+* nginx or similar, as a reverse proxy and/or load balancer for the Gunicorn server(s) inside the node
 * An NTP daemon running on all machines running BigchainDB code, and possibly other machines
 * A RethinkDB proxy server
+* A RethinkDB "wire protocol firewall" (in the future: this component doesn't exist yet)
 * Scalable storage for RethinkDB (e.g. using RAID)
 * Monitoring software, to monitor all the machines in the node
+* Configuration management agents (if you're using a configuration managment system that uses agents)
+* Maybe more
+
+The relationship between these components is illustrated below.
+
+![Components of a node](../_static/Node-components.png)

docs/source/nodes/node-requirements.md

@@ -1,4 +1,7 @@
-# Node Requirements (OS, Memory, Storage, etc.)
+# Production Node Requirements
+
+Note: This section will be broken apart into several pages, e.g. NTP requirements, RethinkDB requirements, BigchainDB requirements, etc. and those pages will add more details.
+
 
 ## OS Requirements
 

docs/source/nodes/setup-run-node.md

@@ -1,8 +1,6 @@
 # Set Up and Run a Cluster Node
 
-If you want to set up a BigchainDB node that's intended to be one of the nodes in a BigchainDB cluster (i.e. where each node is operated by a different member of a federation), then this page is for you, otherwise see [elsewhere](../introduction.html).
-
-This is a page of general guidelines for setting up a node. It says nothing about how to upgrade software, storage, processing, etc. or other details of node management. That will be added in the future, in [the section on production node setup & management](../prod-node-depl-tplt/index.html). Once that section is more complete, this page will probably be deleted.
+This is a page of general guidelines for setting up a production node. It says nothing about how to upgrade software, storage, processing, etc. or other details of node management. It will be expanded more in the future.
 
 
 ## Get a Server