bigchaindb/docs/server/source/nodes/node-components.md

Production Node Components

A BigchainDB node must include, at least:

• BigchainDB Server and
• RethinkDB Server.

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 should have several other components, including:

• 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.