Hi!
Gustav from Dwellir here. We are currently running a public Shiden RPC service and we want to apply for dApp staking on Shiden.
TLDR
Dwellir is an infrastructure as a service team providing RPC infrastructure to the Dotsama ecosystem. We are proposing to run a geographically distributed public Shiden RPC API Service and providing free developer community access endpoints.
This service is currently available via:
wss://shiden-rpc.dwellir.com
https://shiden-rpc.dwellir.com
Background
About Dwellir
Dwellir is an infrastructure provider for the decentralized web. We run RPC services for Kusama, Polkadot, Astar and Shiden.
We also provide validator services for the networks Kusama, Polkadot and participate in the Thousand Validator Programme for Polkadot & Kusama.
We own and operate our own bare metal. This directly contribute to real decentralization of the network away from public cloud providers.
Lastly, we are builders. We are working on a suite of tools associated with our infrastructure that aim to give insights to the community. An example of this work is a report produced for the Kusama Council (rpc-perf/report.md at main · dwellir-public/rpc-perf · GitHub).
Problem Areas
Milestone 1 - Providing RPC services for the Parachain
Setting up blockchain infrastructure is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive:
- It requires a level of DevOps skills that many do not have. A Shiden node for example, requires knowledge of SSL certificate handling, websocket management, https management, firewall configuration, security measures, monitoring, reporting, upgrades etc.
- It’s extremely costly to run a node. Since we own and operate our infrastructure our cost structures are far more sustainable than cloud providers where one can expect huge increases in price.
- Running production level infrastructure is not trivial. You need to autoscale quickly to handle sudden increases in traffic which is very common when new projects launch. Our infrastructure uses a smart cluster stack whereby sudden increases in traffic are expertly scaled up and down as needed without the need for intervention.
- It requires time. Time is the most valuable resource for projects. Most projects simply do not have the time to spend on DevOps especially in crunch moments.
Milestone 2 - Providing RPC services for developers
It is essential the developers have a low barrier to entry when developing innovative solutions. As alluded to in milestone 1, setting up nodes is a barrier in order to increase the velocity of ecosystem growth. We believe it’s a barrier that we should remove as a public service. As stated by the Astar team on discord:
“Congestion is because we have a lot of projects using public endpoints to build their dApp. They should use private endpoints.”
We will provide publicly available endpoints for developers with the same robust service as the main parachain. We do this under a fair-use policy which will require continuous improvements in how developers access the infrastructure itself.
Proposal
Scope
We have been supporting the Shiden Network since March 6th (Added Dwellir RPC endpoints for Astar and Shiden by Maharacha · Pull Request #7108 · polkadot-js/apps · GitHub), this shows our willingness to support projects at all phases. We are builders first and want to ensure that we provide infrastructure and additional services that meet the needs of the community for the next decade!
Being part of the dApp staking program will enable us to continue the service we currently provide which entails:
- Hosting multiple instances of Shiden nodes
- 24/7 Monitoring of core functions including scaling mechanism
- Continuous security improvements
- Continuous updates, upgrades, optimisations
- Communication with development teams (where necessary)
- Currently we operate two clusters in Northern Europe and our goal is to open an US cluster before Q3 and an East Asian cluster in Q4.
Outcomes
There are four main outcomes:
- Improve the decentralization of the ecosystem by providing our own bare-metal infrastructure.
- Improve the user experience within the Shiden ecosystems by ensuring reliable availability of the network.
- Strengthen the team’s ability to work on core business problems as a result of reducing the strain on DevOps. We believe it’s important that parachain teams innovate on their core technology rather than spend time and resources on DevOps where we are clearly positioned to take the load.
- Provide options for the community of developers to get started with free endpoints.