Ankr Network- Load Balanced Public RPC Endpoints

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Nelson Noon

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

Entity (Incorporated)

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

3

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language

No

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

Through our RPC technology, we have built a proprietary load-balancer architecture to ensure global scalability and multi-node provider accessibility.

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

No

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.”

No dependencies

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

No

[GENERAL] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

Projects outputs will not be open source because it is focused on hardware implementation.

[METADATA] Horizons

Infrastructure

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

The problem with cloud based servers is large providers such as AWS, Google and Azure, is that there is very little, if any, coverage in regions like Africa, South-East Asia and South America. Ankr can deploy bare metal servers in these regions (not excluding EU and NA) to ensure a high quality developer environment on load balanced, low latency, high rate limited bare metal clusters. The impact of this solution will be able to be easily monitored by the developers and community members via UI.

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

Not only will these bare metal clusters, be truly globally distributed with the lowest latency in the industry, Ankr is also open to campaigns to drive developer adoption further. Impact will be measured through developer accounts and public usage.

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

We have deployed node clusters for over 55 blockchains and work with over 50 data centers since 2017.

[PROJECT MILESTONES] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Node Deployment and Maintenance:

• Objective: Deploy Cardano nodes in key global regions (N. America, S. America, Africa, Asia, and Europe) and sync them with the Cardano network.

• Use of Funds: Purchase bare metal servers and cover initial deployment costs to ensure low-latency access and high performance.

Timeline: 2-4 weeks

Infrastructure Enhancement and Scalability:

• Objective: Improve our proprietary load-balancer architecture for enhanced scalability and multi-node provider accessibility.

• Use of Funds: Invest in infrastructure upgrades to handle increased traffic and requests.

Timeline: 2-4 weeks

Evidence of milestone completion

Upon completion: RPCs will be able to be queried on our website -- https://www.ankr.com/rpc/

URL instated e.g https://rpc.ankr.com/"cardano"

Landing page instated e.g https://polygon-rpc.com/ (using polygon as an example of what the landing page will look like.)

Timeline: 2-4 weeks

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Chandler Song - Co- Founder - CEO https://www.linkedin.com/in/yunfansong/

Stanley Wu- Co- Founder - CTO https://www.linkedin.com/in/stanley-w-5714a4163/

Ryan Fang - Co- Founder - COO https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-fang-245011a2/

Peter Stewart - Head of Infrastructure https://www.linkedin.com/in/petergstewart/

• Responsible for hardware integration

Arsalan Evini - Head of Business Development 

Amos Lowe - Assistant Business Development Manager

• Facilitation of communication and BD related tasks

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

50% Upfront: 225,000 $ADA tokens upon approval to cover initial deployment and syncing of Near nodes, and purchase of BareMetal servers.

50% at Completion: 225,000 $ADA tokens upon completion of infrastructure enhancement and scalability improvements.

[VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

The cost of the project will be represented through the hardware, in-house engineers managing these clusters via in-house OS and, the largest free public query limit in the industry allowing for developers to build high quality dapps before hitting a pay wall.