Today we want to share with you an updated version of the SONM Roadmap for the upcoming year, with more detailed explanations. In this timeline we have outlined our activities in the three main areas that we’ll be focusing on: Product, Business and Marketing.
There are a lot of product improvements ahead, and we are giving special attention to improving the user experience both for customers and suppliers. Since June we have tested SONM on Livenet successfully but there are many technical features that we still plan to add.
The Business and Marketing timelines will be in line with the product, focusing on explaining how SONM benefits the global community, and working on the development, support and promotion of new services. We’ll also continue ongoing activities to spread our brand awareness through events, building media relationships, and dedicated campaigns.
The roadmap will be updated with time. You will always be able to find the most up-to-date version in our blog, or just by asking our super-friendly community management team.
Take a look at the new version of the roadmap, and share your thoughts and comments with us in our Telegram groups:
Q3 of 2018
Storage and network quotas are almost active and are currently under testing. These features allow network and storage usage to be limited for Сustomer-created tasks on the Worker.
Currently, only spot deals are fully supported by the platform. This is a special type of deal that has no expiry date (they are ongoing), but can be terminated by any party at will. A forward deal is a type of a deal with an end date and time, but it cannot be terminated by a supplier, so may be used in cases when the customer needs guaranteed access to resources.
The Automated Installer for SONM will allow a PC to be booted from a USB flash drive and turned into a SONM Worker. The installer will also be able to create SONM Worker images for virtual machines (KVM, VMWare and Virtualbox).
We continue to improve the Connor bot, featuring more different coins, and working toward Connor’s ability to provide access to different resources (not only GPUs, but CPU, RAM, disks and networks).
Business
In Q3 of 2018 we’ll introduce full KYC support for customers, which they will need in order to launch custom software.
For suppliers a profitability calculator will be launched, providing hardware owners with the possibility to check the profitability of their equipment on SONM. They can then compare it to their hardware profitability on other networks and can decide whether to choose SONM.
We’ll also launch a Telegram bot and ticketing system to strengthen our technical support.
We plan to promote the platform among potential suppliers, offering them guaranteed income for the hardware they rent out.
Marketing
In Q3 of 2018 we visited the TC Disrupt 2018 conference in San Francisco, U.S., where we had a stand, held on-site promotional activities and gave two important talks:
SONM speaking schedule at TC Disrupt 2018
September 5, 2018 4:45 p.m. — Q&A session ”Inside ICOs” with SONM co-founder Aleksei Antonov. Sharing the stage with Aleksei were the speakers Avichal Garg (Electric Capital), Arianna Simpson (Autonomous Partners) and Valerie Szczepanik (SEC).
September 6, 2018 11 a.m. — Interactive workshop “Bleeding-Edge IT Trends Explained” hosted by SONM CTO Igor Lebedev.
In Q3 we’ll also develop the SONM advocacy program, which is currently being beta-tested. The full roll-out is planned for September.
Q4 of 2018
In the final quarter of this year we plan to develop a completely new set of technical features, with the aim of providing a better user experience for our clients.
First of all, we’ll focus our efforts on introducing a rating system. This important feature will allow us to move one step closer to a better customer experience and launch the SLA (Service Level Agreement). This is a special compensation system for clients for cases when the supplier doesn’t complete the task or breaks the contract.
We will also work on a filter-by-geolocation option for the consumer, providing them with the opportunity to rent resources in a chosen country or region. This can be useful for projects regulated by law (i.e. that involve access to a large amount of personal data) and for Content Delivery Networks (CDN).
Blockchain explorer. This is an online instrument that allows SONM users to see a detailed history of all transactions within the SONM sidechain, with the ETH address shown.
We’ll also add a Market Explorer, which will be implemented as a business intelligence (BI) system to give SONM users the ability to track deal history and view platform usage statistics.
As a supplier, you might be also interested to know that we will continue to improve the Connor bot and add a module for automatic management of deals and tasks — a generalized version of the Connor bot that allows automatic resource provision on the SONM platform.
We’ll also further explore the video rendering potential of SONM and add Afanasy and Deadline software integration for CGI rendering.
Business
For those of you who prefer to purchase resources with a bank card, we made this option available a while ago via third-party services. Starting from Q4 of 2018, this option will be built into the SONM Wallet. For corporate clients willing to pay via bank transfer in fiat currency, we also aim to provide this option by the same quarter.
In Q4 of 2018 we will launch our long-awaited Referral System to reward network users who contribute to its growth. Each of them will receive about 3% from deals made by clients they have referred to the platform — for a lifetime!
Marketing
In Q4 we’ll also launch the fog computing early adopters support program and grant members with free KYC and a bonus of up to 10,000 tokens to start testing the platform.
This October will be full of events. Let’s take a look at the biggest ones, where we’ll be making presentations and will have a stand.
First, we’ll be joining the Fog World conference, hosted by Open Fog Consortium in October 2018 with a SONM stand and a keynote speech by our CTO, Igor Lebedev.
Later in the month we’ll be visiting the Cloud Expo conference in Singapore with a whole range of speaking slots: we’ll have four of them during different sessions. The full program will be published a few weeks before the event.
We expect some more events to be confirmed. Follow us on social media for more news, and come to say hello!
Q1 of 2019
In anticipation of a new year, we are mapping out a set of new challenges for ourselves in 2019.
First of all, we will introduce PoS gate masternodes to the SONM blockchain (cross-chain interconnect). At the moment, we have PoA-masternodes released by SONM developers but we plan to switch to PoS and create masternodes run by token holders. Any token holder with at least 100,000 SNM tokens can become a part of the SONM infrastructure.
We plan to introduce the concept of Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) for masternode owners. Starting from Q1 2019, users will have the opportunity to vote on major decisions or receive income for their contribution to the system that would be proportional to the number of tokens in their account.
Also, in Q1 2019 the platform will begin supporting Kubernetes, an open-source container-orchestration system for automating deployment and management.
We plan to introduce a Proof-of-Test-Case algorithm, which will be based on running supplier resources. Since SONM’s customers pay not per task executed but for the computing power they use, there is only one way to test the proof algorithm: run it on a random set of suppliers. If we notice that a supplier’s equipment doesn’t technically meet the stated parameters, we will downgrade their score.
Business
The main business task for the beginning of the next year is the introduction of new payment options and making it possible to receive payments in USD and EUR. All internal transactions and payments to suppliers will still be made in SNM cryptocurrency but the conversion will be automated and customers will have the opportunity to pay in fiat.
Web-based Control Panel. Customers will be able to use the web-based control panel to enter the platform’s website and pay for SONM services in fiat currency in а personal account.
Video rendering as a service. SONM will create a prototype of a rendering farm on the platform. It will be based on Afanasy and Deadline software, which will distribute tasks for rendering, buying the required computing resources on SONM in automatic mode.
Marketing
Following our successful presence at CloudFest last year, we plan to attend the event in 2019 as well and be there with the SONM stand and a team.
We will also be reinforcing the promotion campaign for B2B clients, attracting companies interested in specific solutions (i.e. video rendering) and providing them with the right infrastructure to make using the platform easier for them, i.e. fiat payments, support for wire payments, and more.
Q2 of 2019
We are awaiting the emergence of one of the most important software engineering features: the Trusted Platform prototype. Representing the evolution of the SONM installer and our own OS distro, this is software aimed at protecting customers from potential attacks by suppliers.
In the second quarter of 2019 we will launch custom attributes in Profiles with a validation system. Currently, each profile contains KYC and Ethereum profile information and public statistics that we add automatically. Custom attributes will allow suppliers and customers to add some extra information about themselves in a pre-moderated mode.
Block-producing masternodes. Block-producing masternodes will appear on the SONM platform. Their task will be to create blocks in the SONM blockchain in accordance with the PoS algorithm. Users with a balance of 500,000 SNM and more will be able to become masternodes. Block-producing masternodes will receive a reward in SNM tokens for their work.
Business
The highlight of Q2 of 2019 will be the introduction of Kubernetes as a Service. This means that customers will no longer need to install Kubernetes itself: it will operate on the SONM Platform itself. We will also introduce Serverless as a Service. This will allow the customer’s application to be run on the platform, while Serverless will identify the quantity of Docker containers required.
We understand that fog computing isn’t a suitable solution for certain tasks that require a high level of security; cloud infrastructure may be better in this case. So we will integrate fog and cloud infrastructure for a hybrid solution. This hybrid solution will integrate the economy and scalability of fog computing and the security level of cloud computing.
Marketing
During the second quarter of the year SONM will launch a new Challenge competition based on Kubernetes-related tasks. The main goal of the initiative is to grow the platform, attract talented developers, and identify the most promising potential candidates to join the team.
Q3 of 2019
Native MS Windows support for Suppliers. Suppliers will receive MS Windows support, meaning they won’t have to install Linux on their computers.
During the third quarter of 2019 we will improve our Trusted Platform to protect customers from suppliers who could potentially use special equipment to hack the security system.
Business
The SONM platform will receive a stack of general PaaS services: Object Storage, File Storage, RDS (SQL), NoSQL (KV).
Marketing
We plan to set up our own conference, the SONM Fog Computing Summit, in September. This event will be dedicated to fog computing trends and projects that can present alternative solutions to the cloud services market. SONM will headline the event, and the significant PR support for the conference means that the company’s brand will become more recognizable as a result.
Q4 of 2019
We plan to introduce ARM CPU architecture support. This will extend the SONM ecosystem to the world of mobile devices, as well as IoT and specialized hardware.
Business
We will add MS Windows-based applications support for customers. This will significantly expand the range of possible applications for the SONM platform.
Marketing
Our team will present SONM at the CloudExpo Asia conference, one of the largest tech conferences in the Asia-Pacific region.
Originally published at sonm.com on August 24, 2018.
