Who runs the Notary in Corda?

Question

In case of a consortium of banks in a Corda network consisting of one notary, could you please tell me who will be responsible for running the notary? It is clear that a notary is a network service, so can any bank run the notary as and when it wishes to, to check for double spends or is there one "main" bank/node that takes charge to trigger the notary service. Thank you.

Answer 1

Now, this is completely dependent on the network operator. The network can have anything from a single one-node validating notary to hundreds of pooled non-validating notaries.

You have mentioned that bank nodes are joining and leaving the notary service at will. This comes under the Proof of Work consensus algorithm, however, it is not a property of consensus algorithms generally. If you want to adopt this mode, use a suitable consensus algorithm for your notary pool. This way, you could have to contribute to the notary pool full-time.

In your case, prefer paid third-parties to provide the notary pool.