Decentralized APIs

APIs have been used by developers for the past decade to build cloud-based (centralized) apps and mashups. We are moving to a new economy of decentralized apps (Dapps) where centralized APIs are no longer an option. So, how do you build these new Dapps without APIs?

Computes is being designed and positioned as the new AWS and Azure for the decentralized web. Computes is basically a peer-to-peer mesh computing platform. Every machine (edge, on-premise, and cloud) can connect, communicate, and compute together as a single computer — a supercomputer.

From the very beginning, we opted out of building Computes on the blockchain. Instead, we designed and developed a DAG-based ledger for storing computations along with input, output, and log file hashes in the ComputesFS . This “blockless ledger” provides Computes with incredible throughput speeds, no transaction costs, no proof-of-work wasted computations, and no ledger storage concerns.

Next, we designed and developed a decentralized queuing engine called Lattice which distributes computations to the right machine, in the right location, at the right time and keeps track of time-to-live (TTL) and ultimately results consensus. If a TTL expires before Lattice receives the results, Lattice can move the compute to the next best machine, in the next best location to re-compute the task. Lattice supports both serial computing required in many machine learning algorithms as well as massively parallel computing where possible.

Here’s an illustration of the Computes mesh computer architecture. Notice that it’s built on top of IPFS. We leverage IPFS’ networking and file system for Computes’ private mesh networks and peer-to-peer file system. We also leverage IPFS’ pubsub and DAG for our decentralized ledger and queuing technologies.

Above the Lattice layer (in black), you will notice that Computes’ Daemon is designed to be run along side of the IPFS daemon. Our daemon is a 15MB binary that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux (x86 & ARM) as well as on hypervisors such as VMWare, XenServer, and KVM. If you look a little closer, you will also notice that our daemon also introduces a local REST API for interacting with our global supercomputer. Our command line interface (CLI) and software developer kit (SDK) are designed to run on top of our local REST API.

Above is a screen shot of our Computes Daemon and local REST API calls in action. Notice the GET, POST, and PUT API calls in action as we execute commands in the CLI. It also displays HTTP response codes in green as the result of each successful local API call.

New decentralized apps (Dapps) can now be built using our Computes APIs just as we have done with the CLI and SDK. These are realtime, decentralized applications running without a blockchain! Our API documentation can be found on GitHub.

Welcome to the new decentralized economy and our new decentralized computing platform.

More news on Lattice coming soon! Since Computes is decentralized, there is no additional infrastructure required to run our mesh computer. Essentially everything computes, everywhere. You simply need to deploy and “activate” computes on your machines. Interested in learning more about our evolutionary mesh computing technology, simply contact us (info@computes.com) for more details.

Stay tuned to this blog for more exciting information about our new technology stack and development progress! You can also reach us on Twitter, Facebook, and GitHub.