Running the demos¶

The Corda repository contains a number of demo programs demonstrating Corda’s functionality:

The Trader Demo, which shows a delivery-vs-payment atomic swap of commercial paper for cash
The IRS Demo, which shows two nodes establishing an interest rate swap and performing fixings with a rates oracle
The Attachment Demo, which demonstrates uploading attachments to nodes
The Notary Demo, which shows three different types of notaries and a single node getting multiple transactions notarised.
The Bank of Corda Demo, which shows a node acting as an issuer of assets (the Bank of Corda) while remote client applications request issuance of some cash on behalf of a node called Big Corporation

If any of the demos don’t work, please raise an issue on GitHub.

Note

If you are running the demos from the command line in Linux (but not macOS), you may have to install xterm.

Note

If you would like to see flow activity on the nodes type in the node terminal flow watch.

Trader demo¶

This demo brings up four nodes: Bank A, Bank B, Bank Of Corda, and a notary/network map node that they all use. Bank A will be the buyer, and requests some cash from the Bank of Corda in order to acquire commercial paper from Bank B, the seller.

To run from the command line in Unix:

Run ./gradlew samples:trader-demo:deployNodes to create a set of configs and installs under samples/trader-demo/build/nodes
Run ./samples/trader-demo/build/nodes/runnodes to open up four new terminals with the four nodes
Run ./gradlew samples:trader-demo:runBank to instruct the bank node to issue cash and commercial paper to the buyer and seller nodes respectively.
Run ./gradlew samples:trader-demo:runSeller to trigger the transaction. If you entered flow watch

you can see flows running on both sides of transaction. Additionally you should see final trade information displayed to your terminal.

To run from the command line in Windows:

Run gradlew samples:trader-demo:deployNodes to create a set of configs and installs under samples\trader-demo\build\nodes
Run samples\trader-demo\build\nodes\runnodes to open up four new terminals with the four nodes
Run gradlew samples:trader-demo:runBank to instruct the buyer node to request issuance of some cash from the Bank of Corda node
Run gradlew samples:trader-demo:runSeller to trigger the transaction. If you entered flow watch

you can see flows running on both sides of transaction. Additionally you should see final trade information displayed to your terminal.

IRS demo¶

This demo brings up three nodes: Bank A, Bank B and a node that simultaneously runs a notary, a network map and an interest rates oracle. The two banks agree on an interest rate swap, and then do regular fixings of the deal as the time on a simulated clock passes.

To run from the command line in Unix:

Run ./gradlew samples:irs-demo:deployNodes to install configs and a command line tool under samples/irs-demo/build
Run ./gradlew samples:irs-demo:installDist
Move to the samples/irs-demo/build directory
Run ./nodes/runnodes to open up three new terminals with the three nodes (you may have to install xterm).

To run from the command line in Windows:

Run gradlew.bat samples:irs-demo:deployNodes to install configs and a command line tool under samples\irs-demo\build
Run gradlew.bat samples:irs-demo:installDist
Run cd samples\irs-demo\build to change current working directory
Run nodes\runnodes to open up several 6 terminals, 2 for each node. First terminal is a web-server associated with every node and second one is Corda interactive shell for the node.

This demo also has a web app. To use this, run nodes and then navigate to http://localhost:10007/web/irsdemo and http://localhost:10010/web/irsdemo to see each node’s view of the ledger.

To use the web app, click the “Create Deal” button, fill in the form, then click the “Submit” button. You can then use the time controls at the top left of the home page to run the fixings. Click any individual trade in the blotter to view it.

Note

The IRS web UI currently has a bug when changing the clock time where it may show no numbers or apply fixings inconsistently. The issues will be addressed in a future milestone release. Meanwhile, you can take a look at a simpler oracle example https://github.com/corda/oracle-example

Attachment demo¶

This demo brings up three nodes, and sends a transaction containing an attachment from one to the other.

To run from the command line in Unix:

Run ./gradlew samples:attachment-demo:deployNodes to create a set of configs and installs under samples/attachment-demo/build/nodes
Run ./samples/attachment-demo/build/nodes/runnodes to open up three new terminal tabs/windows with the three nodes and webserver for BankB
Run ./gradlew samples:attachment-demo:runRecipient, which will block waiting for a trade to start
Run ./gradlew samples:attachment-demo:runSender in another terminal window to send the attachment. Now look at the other windows to see the output of the demo

To run from the command line in Windows:

Run gradlew samples:attachment-demo:deployNodes to create a set of configs and installs under samples\attachment-demo\build\nodes
Run samples\attachment-demo\build\nodes\runnodes to open up three new terminal tabs/windows with the three nodes and webserver for BankB
Run gradlew samples:attachment-demo:runRecipient, which will block waiting for a trade to start
Run gradlew samples:attachment-demo:runSender in another terminal window to send the attachment. Now look at the other windows to see the output of the demo

Notary demo¶

This demo shows a party getting transactions notarised by either a single-node or a distributed notary service. All versions of the demo start two counterparty nodes. One of the counterparties will generate transactions that transfer a self-issued asset to the other party and submit them for notarisation. The Raft version of the demo will start three distributed notary nodes. The BFT SMaRt version of the demo will start four distributed notary nodes.

The output will display a list of notarised transaction IDs and corresponding signer public keys. In the Raft distributed notary, every node in the cluster can service client requests, and one signature is sufficient to satisfy the notary composite key requirement. In the BFT SMaRt distributed notary, three signatures are required. You will notice that successive transactions get signed by different members of the cluster (usually allocated in a random order).

To run the Raft version of the demo from the command line in Unix:

Run ./gradlew samples:notary-demo:deployNodes, which will create all three types of notaries’ node directories with configs under samples/notary-demo/build/nodes/nodesRaft (nodesBFT and nodesSingle for BFT and Single notaries).
Run ./samples/notary-demo/build/nodes/nodesRaft/runnodes, which will start the nodes in separate terminal windows/tabs. Wait until a “Node started up and registered in ...” message appears on each of the terminals
Run ./gradlew samples:notary-demo:notarise to make a call to the “Party” node to initiate notarisation requests In a few seconds you will see a message “Notarised 10 transactions” with a list of transaction ids and the signer public keys

To run from the command line in Windows:

Run gradlew samples:notary-demo:deployNodes, which will create all three types of notaries’ node directories with configs under samples/notary-demo/build/nodes/nodesRaft (nodesBFT and nodesSingle for BFT and Single notaries).
Run samples\notary-demo\build\nodes\nodesRaft\runnodes, which will start the nodes in separate terminal windows/tabs. Wait until a “Node started up and registered in ...” message appears on each of the terminals
Run gradlew samples:notary-demo:notarise to make a call to the “Party” node to initiate notarisation requests In a few seconds you will see a message “Notarised 10 transactions” with a list of transaction ids and the signer public keys

To run the BFT SMaRt notary demo, use nodesBFT instead of nodesRaft in the path (you will see messages from notary nodes trying to communicate each other sometime with connection errors, that’s normal). For a single notary node, use nodesSingle.

Distributed notary nodes store consumed states in a replicated commit log, which is backed by a H2 database on each node. You can ascertain that the commit log is synchronised across the cluster by accessing and comparing each of the nodes’ backing stores by using the H2 web console:

Firstly, download H2 web console (download the “platform-independent zip”), and start it using a script in the extracted folder: sh h2/bin/h2.sh (or h2\bin\h2 for Windows)
If you are uncertain as to which version of h2 to install or if you have connectivity issues, refer to build.gradle located in the corda directory and locate h2_version. Use a client of the same major version - even if still in beta.
The H2 web console should start up in a web browser tab. To connect we first need to obtain a JDBC connection string. Each node outputs its connection string in the terminal window as it starts up. In a terminal window where a notary node is running, look for the following string:

Database connection url is : jdbc:h2:tcp://10.18.0.150:56736/node

You can use the string on the right to connect to the h2 database: just paste it into the JDBC URL field and click Connect. You will be presented with a web application that enumerates all the available tables and provides an interface for you to query them using SQL
The committed states are stored in the NOTARY_COMMITTED_STATES table (for Raft) or NODE_BFT_SMART_NOTARY_COMMITTED_STATES (for BFT). Note that in the Raft case the raw data is not human-readable, but we’re only interested in the row count for this demo

Bank Of Corda demo¶

This demo brings up three nodes: a notary, a node acting as the Bank of Corda that accepts requests for issuance of some asset and a node acting as Big Corporation which requests issuance of an asset (cash in this example).

Upon receipt of a request the Bank of Corda node self-issues the asset and then transfers ownership to the requester after successful notarisation and recording of the issue transaction on the ledger.

Note

The Bank of Corda is somewhat like a “Bitcoin faucet” that dispenses free bitcoins to developers for testing and experimentation purposes.

To run from the command line in Unix:

Run ./gradlew samples:bank-of-corda-demo:deployNodes to create a set of configs and installs under samples/bank-of-corda-demo/build/nodes
Run ./samples/bank-of-corda-demo/build/nodes/runnodes to open up three new terminal tabs/windows with the three nodes
Run ./gradlew samples:bank-of-corda-demo:runRPCCashIssue to trigger a cash issuance request
Run ./gradlew samples:bank-of-corda-demo:runWebCashIssue to trigger another cash issuance request. Now look at your terminal tab/window to see the output of the demo

To run from the command line in Windows:

Run gradlew samples:bank-of-corda-demo:deployNodes to create a set of configs and installs under samples\bank-of-corda-demo\build\nodes
Run samples\bank-of-corda-demo\build\nodes\runnodes to open up three new terminal tabs/windows with the three nodes
Run gradlew samples:bank-of-corda-demo:runRPCCashIssue to trigger a cash issuance request
Run gradlew samples:bank-of-corda-demo:runWebCashIssue to trigger another cash issuance request. Now look at the your terminal tab/window to see the output of the demo

Note

To verify that the Bank of Corda node is alive and running, navigate to the following URL: http://localhost:10007/api/bank/date

In the window you run the command you should see (in case of Web, RPC is simmilar):

Requesting Cash via Web ...
Successfully processed Cash Issue request

If you want to see flow activity enter in node’s shell flow watch. It will display all state machines running currently on the node.

Launch the Explorer application to visualize the issuance and transfer of cash for each node:

./gradlew tools:explorer:run (on Unix) or gradlew tools:explorer:run (on Windows)

Using the following login details:

For the Bank of Corda node: localhost / port 10006 / username bankUser / password test
For the Big Corporation node: localhost / port 10009 / username bigCorpUser / password test

See https://docs.corda.net/node-explorer.html for further details on usage.

SIMM and Portfolio Demo - aka the Initial Margin Agreement Demo¶

Background and SIMM Introduction¶

This app is a demonstration of how Corda can be used for the real world requirement of initial margin calculation and agreement; featuring the integration of complex and industry proven third party libraries into Corda nodes.

SIMM is an acronym for “Standard Initial Margin Model”. It is effectively the calculation of a “margin” that is paid by one party to another when they agree a trade on certain types of transaction.

The SIMM was introduced to standardise the calculation of how much margin counterparties charge each other on their bilateral transactions. Before SIMM, each counterparty computed margins according to its own model and it was made it very

difficult to agree the exact margin with the counterparty that faces the same trade on the other side.

To enact this, in September 2016, the ISDA committee - with full backing from various governing bodies - issued a ruling on what is known as the ISDA SIMM ™ model, a way of fairly and consistently calculating this margin. Any parties wishing to trade a financial product that is covered under this ruling would, independently, use this model and calculate their margin payment requirement, agree it with their trading counterparty and then pay (or receive, depending on the results of this calculation) this amount. In the case of disagreement that is not resolved in a timely fashion, this payment would increase and so therefore it is in the parties’ interest to reach agreement in as short as time frame as possible.

To be more accurate, the SIMM calculation is not performed on just one trade - it is calculated on an aggregate of intermediary values (which in this model are sensitivities to risk factors) from a portfolio of trades; therefore the input to a SIMM is actually this data, not the individual trades themselves.

Also note that implementations of the SIMM are actually protected and subject to license restrictions by ISDA (this is due to the model itself being protected). We were fortunate enough to technically partner with OpenGamma who allowed us to demonstrate the SIMM process using their proprietary model. In the source code released, we have replaced their analytics engine with very simple stub functions that allow the process to run without actually calculating correct values, and can easily be swapped out in place for their real libraries.

What happens in the demo (notionally)¶

Preliminaries

Ensure that there are a number of live trades with another party based on financial products that are covered under the ISDA SIMM agreement (if none, then use the demo to enter some simple trades as described below).

Initial Margin Agreement Process

Agree that one will be performing the margining calculation against a portfolio of trades with another party, and agree the trades in that portfolio. In practice, one node will start the flow but it does not matter which node does.
Individually (at the node level), identify the data (static, reference etc) one will need in order to be able to calculate the metrics on those trades
Confirm with the other counterparty the dataset from the above set
Calculate any intermediary steps and values needed for the margin calculation (ie sensitivities to risk factors)
Agree on the results of these steps
Calculate the initial margin
Agree on the calculation of the above with the other party
In practice, pay (or receive) this margin (omitted for the sake of complexity for this example)

Demo execution (step by step)¶

Setting up the Corda infrastructure

To run from the command line in Unix:

Deploy the nodes using ./gradlew samples:simm-valuation-demo:deployNodes
Run the nodes using ./samples/simm-valuation-demo/build/nodes/runnodes

To run from the command line in Windows:

Deploy the nodes using gradlew samples:simm-valuation-demo:deployNodes
Run the nodes using samples\simm-valuation-demo\build\nodes\runnodes

Getting Bank A’s details

From the command line run

curl http://localhost:10005/api/simmvaluationdemo/whoami

The response should be something like

{
    "self" : {
        "id" : "8Kqd4oWdx4KQGHGQW3FwXHQpjiv7cHaSsaAWMwRrK25bBJj792Z4rag7EtA",
        "text" : "C=GB,L=London,O=Bank A"
    },
    "counterparties" : [
        {
            "id" : "8Kqd4oWdx4KQGHGL1DzULumUmZyyokeSGJDY1n5M6neUfAj2sjbf65wYwQM",
            "text" : "C=JP,L=Tokyo,O=Bank C"
        },
        {
            "id" : "8Kqd4oWdx4KQGHGTBm34eCM2nrpcWKeM1ZG3DUYat3JTFUQTwB3Lv2WbPM8",
            "text" : "C=US,L=New York,O=Bank B"
        }
    ]
}

Now, if we ask the same question of Bank C we will see that it’s id matches the id for Bank C as a counter party to Bank A and Bank A will appear as a counter party

curl -i -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X GET http://localhost:10011/api/simmvaluationdemo/whoami

Creating a trade with Bank C

In what follows, we assume we are Bank A (which is listening on port 10005)

Notice the id field in the output of the whoami command. We are going to use the id assocatied with Bank C, one of our counter parties, to create a trade. The general command for this is:

curl -i -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X PUT -d <<<JSON representation of the trade>>>  http://localhost:10005/api/simmvaluationdemo/<<<counter party id>>>/trades

where the representation of the trade is

{
    "id"          : "trade1",
    "description" : "desc",
    "tradeDate"   : [ 2016, 6, 6 ],
    "convention"  : "EUR_FIXED_1Y_EURIBOR_3M",
    "startDate"   : [ 2016, 6, 6 ],
    "endDate"     : [ 2020, 1, 2 ],
    "buySell"     : "BUY",
    "notional"    : "1000",
    "fixedRate"   : "0.1"
}

Continuing our example, the specific command we would run is

curl -i -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -X PUT \
    -d '{"id":"trade1","description" : "desc","tradeDate" : [ 2016, 6, 6 ],  "convention" : "EUR_FIXED_1Y_EURIBOR_3M",  "startDate" : [ 2016, 6, 6 ],  "endDate" : [ 2020, 1, 2 ],  "buySell" : "BUY",  "notional" : "1000",  "fixedRate" : "0.1"}' \
    http://localhost:10005/api/simmvaluationdemo/8Kqd4oWdx4KQGHGL1DzULumUmZyyokeSGJDY1n5M6neUfAj2sjbf65wYwQM/trades

With an expected response of

HTTP/1.1 202 Accepted
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2017 17:19:39 GMT
Content-Type: text/plain
    Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Content-Length: 2
Server: Jetty(9.3.9.v20160517)

Verifying trade completion

With the trade completed and stored by both parties, the complete list of trades with our couterparty can be seen with the following command

curl -X GET http://localhost:10005/api/simmvaluationdemo/<<<counter party id>>>/trades

The command for our example, using Bank A, would thus be

curl -X GET http://localhost:10005/api/simmvaluationdemo/8Kqd4oWdx4KQGHGL1DzULumUmZyyokeSGJDY1n5M6neUfAj2sjbf65wYwQM/trades

whilst a specific trade can be seen with

curl  -X GET http://localhost:10005/api/simmvaluationdemo/<<<counter party id>>>/trades/<<<trade id>>>

If we look at the trade we created above, we assigned it the id “trade1”, the complete command in this case would be

curl  -X GET http://localhost:10005/api/simmvaluationdemo/8Kqd4oWdx4KQGHGL1DzULumUmZyyokeSGJDY1n5M6neUfAj2sjbf65wYwQM/trades/trade1

Generating a valuation

curl -i -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -X POST \
    -d <<<JSON representation>>>
    http://localhost:10005/api/simmvaluationdemo/<<<counter party id>>>/portfolio/valuations/calculate

Again, the specific command to continue our example would be

curl -i -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -X POST \
    -d '{"valuationDate":[2016,6,6]}' \
    http://localhost:10005/api/simmvaluationdemo/8Kqd4oWdx4KQGHGL1DzLumUmZyyokeSGJDY1n5M6neUfAj2sjbf65wYwQM/portfolio/valuations/calculate

Viewing a valuation

In the same way we can ask for specific instances of trades with a counter party, we can request details of valuations

curl -i -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X GET http://localhost:10005/api/simmvaluationdemo/<<<counter party id>>>/portfolio/valuations

The specific command for out Bank A example is

curl -i -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -X GET http://localhost:10005/api/simmvaluationdemo/8Kqd4oWdx4KQGHGL1DzULumUmZyyokeSGJDY1n5M6neUfAj2sjbf65YwQM/portfolio/valuations