# How Node Works
# Overview
Nodes are computers or servers that provide computing, storage, and routing capabilities in the TOP AI Network. Different networks correspond to different types of nodes, such as edge nodes of edge networks. Since a computer or server can join different networks, it can serve as multiple types of nodes.
# Types of Nodes
There are five types of miners in TOP AI Network – edge, validator, advance, archive, and exchange node.
The advance miner can serve as two different types of nodes in different networks simultaneously: validator and auditor.
The table below demonstrates the responsibilities of each node:
| Roles | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| edge | The edge node serves as the access point for users. All the transactions sent to the Edge node of the edge network before being forwarded to the routing and core networks. It protects consensus nodes from DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) and other similar attacks. |
| validator | The validator node formed the sharding of TOP AI Network, and are responsible for verifying transactions through the hpPBFT. |
| auditor | The auditor node have several responsibilities like cross-sharding synchronization, cross-sharding transaction routing, and participation in the hpBFT consensus mechanism. |
| archive | The archive node stores the entire state of the TOP AI Network chain. Archive nodes also help new nodes synchronize the current blockchain state and ensure that data is available. |
| exchange | The exchange node can store all transaction data, and can broadcast the transaction on the whole network. |
# Transaction
A transaction refers to an instruction that initiates an asset transfer from one account to another. A transaction can also contain an action that will be triggered when the transaction is being processed.
- After the client signs the transaction, the transaction will be directly sent to the Edge Network, to protect the Audit Network, Validate Network, Beacon Network and Beacon Network from attacks of flooding transactions.
- After the transaction reaches the Edge Network, the transaction shall be sent to the corresponding Audit Network according to the shard where the transaction receiver's account is in.
- After the transaction reaches the Audit Network, the transaction will be routed to the shard where the transaction receiver's account is in.
- After the transaction reaches the shard where the receiver's account is in, it starts the transaction consensus. Want to know more about transaction consensus? Please refer to Consensus Protocol.
- After the the transaction consensus is over, the data will be packaged into the block and stored in the database of all the nodes in the shard where the receiver's account is in and archive nodes.