Cloud Computing on iExec for Beginners (No Blockchain Experience Required)

Blair Maclennan
iExec
Published in
3 min readOct 23, 2020

The iExec Decentralized Marketplace for Cloud Computing Resources is powerful, but the blockchain aspect can be complicated for those with less experience. The newly released onboarding demo for Cloud Developers changes this.

iExec offers free payment credits. Anyone can select a cloud computing resource provider and run the demo app.

Give it a try ➡ developers.iex.ec

Onboarding demos for developer adoption:

As part of the recently presented adoption roadmap, iExec will be releasing developer demos and walkthrough interfaces for 3 user types that are key to iExec developer adoption.

The 3 developer types are:

  • Cloud Developers
  • Blockchain Developers
  • Dataset (Trusted Compute) Developers.

Each of these developer types has then been split into 3 different knowledge levels. Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced.

Upcoming work on these onboarding walkthroughs can be seen in the adoption roadmap (have a browse get an overview of what is to come)

The goal is to make the onboarding process as easy as possible and to ensure that specific value propositions are clear to the specific user persona. The first developer onboarding walkthrough is forCloud Developer — Beginner’: Cloud Developers with no previous knowledge of blockchain, or iExec.

Cloud Developer — Beginner: Onboarding Walkthrough

The walkthrough consists of running a simple demo application, with no technical requirements. This workflow demonstrates the following iExec value propositions for Cloud Developers:

  • Always Best Price: one place to find the best deal on computing resources.
  • Easier workflow: a dedicated easy-to-use front-end for choosing computing resource providers before executing the task, followed by the choice to download the computational result.
  • No Vendor Lock-in— one single platform, with access to a variety of cloud computing providers. There is no need to be registered with any single vendor, everything can be found on iExec.
  • Easier and familiar authentication: it is possible to login to iExec with a Google account.
  • Easy funds management: the walkthrough offers free credits to spend on computing power and test iExec. Prices will be labeled in fiat currency rather than crypto.

The demo application: Face Swap

In under 5 minutes, the user is taken through the process of running a face swap application on the iExec Cloud Marketplace. iExec sources the best prices across different cloud providers, and you will be able to select the one offering the best rate. By running the application on their selected cloud computing provider, the user is introduced to the concept of executing a task on iExec.

developers.iex.ec

Under the hood: what is hidden behind the interface?

  • Blockchain smart contract transactions
  • iExec Marketplace (Workerpool orders, dapp orders)

iExec offers free payment credits. Anyone can select a cloud computing resource provider and run the demo.

Give it a try ➡️ developers.iex.ec

💡 Want to learn more about iExec? Check out iExec Academy!

iExec Academy aggregates all content related to the project. You’ll find articles, tech documentation, videos, interactive demos, and much more! Whether you are a beginner or an expert, a developer or crypto-enthusiast, you’ll find what you are looking for on iExec Academy!

📚➡️ https://academy.iex.ec

--

--