**Proponent:** esnXpmeRBVMqbaFoY5bbFi9Lapuh85jnDkN8QQtoh3k4jBXxV

**Date:** 18th December 2023

**Amount Requested:** USD $2,400 (TBC PDEX) 

**Short description:** Ongoing & advanced costs for the running of high performance, scalable, and reliable public infrastructure in Q1 and Q2 of  2024  for Polkadex Parachain.

**Full Proposal:** [https://docs.google.com/document/d/179IhXmeHV_8CbckdF-8MttcHpxxXfzwWPU99MRLyquI/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/179IhXmeHV_8CbckdF-8MttcHpxxXfzwWPU99MRLyquI/edit?usp=sharing)

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Why are Public RPC Services Needed for Polkadex Parachain
=========================================================

Setting up blockchain infrastructure is difficult, time consuming, and expensive:

-   It requires a level of server development expertise that many do not have

-   It's costly to run a full node nearly continuously, especially when your dApp's traffic is low and inconsistent. 

-   Running production level infrastructure is especially tricky. You need to autoscale quickly to handle bursty traffic, and you want to provide services in different regions around the world to provide low latency services - all of this is incredibly costly, but comes with significant economies of scale for a provider.

-   DevOps requires constant attention - time that would be better spent elsewhere building.

A shared node API service helps mitigate these barriers of entry to trying accessing a new protocol by reducing all these costs to near zero. We manage all the nodes for our users and distribute them across the world (with intelligent routing) to achieve global scalability from day 1, we monitor each node and ensure that they meet certain service levels, and we have the expertise and scale to handle production workloads and high peak traffic.

In summary, we try to reduce the pain of getting started on Polkadex and minimise the costs of accessing secure nodes while traffic from your dApp is low. When you grow, you can continue to use our shared API service, or we also [provide access to one click deploy dedicated polkadex nodes](https://onfinality.io/dedicated_nodes)  to any cloud of your choosing. 

OnFinality's RPC Service
========================

As Polkadot's largest and most cost efficient infrastructure provider, this proposal will support OnFinality's free public API services for the Polkadex community. Since our inception in November 2020 we have a long track record focussing on three key areas; performance/reliability, providing more value from our Ultimate API service, and cost optimisation.

### Performance/Reliability

OnFinality is operationally striving for a minimum of 99.99% reliability, which means less than an hour of downtime each year. We are the only RPC provider to guarantee this with actual financial penalties. We proudly display and share our [90 day uptime statistics](https://status.onfinality.io/) for each network publicly [here](https://status.onfinality.io/uptime/r40wwpclbwzm).

We have invested hugely into a team dedicated to optimising our application gateway and caching layer to ensure that we provide the fastest possible service for our customers. We run clusters in 5 different regions (North Virginia, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong) and across 4 different infrastructure providers (AWS, GCP, Alicloud, and our own dedicated hardware) to ensure that we are fault tolerant to any single region or cloud provider ceasing service.

### Providing more value from our Ultimate API service

For customers that do sign up for API keys, we've been adding more and more features to provide a better experience. [Geolocation insights](https://blog.onfinality.io/onfinality-adds-geolocation-insights-for-dapps-and-api-apps/) provide statistics about where in the world communities are to help influence decisions around where to expand infrastructure and to view the effectiveness of regional BD initiatives.

OnFinality is the only provider with [Trace API](https://blog.onfinality.io/onfinality-launches-trace-api-for-unprecedented-visibility-into-your-dapps/) support, a huge and essential enhancement allowing unprecedented visibility for dApp builders. Trace API captures and records vital information otherwise not available through regular RPC methods and extrinsics (such as complete XCM transfer records and complete list of balance changes). These APIs are essential in order for [developers like Polkaholic](https://blog.onfinality.io/onfinalitys-new-trace-api-helping-colorful-notion-get-trace-data-from-over-40-substrate-chains/) and Parity's data team to parse and understand XCM transactions.

We've recently added support for 14 more Polkadot parachains as well as Osmosis, Evmos, Harmony, Arbitrum, Optimism, Fuse, DFK Chain, Celo, and Klaytn from outside the ecosystem. With over 100 supported networks, OnFinality is now the largest RPC provider worldwide (in terms of networks supported), and our ongoing expansion helps to bring more and more developers  into the Polkadot ecosystem.

### Cost Optimisation

OnFinality's Polkadex Parachain API is running entirely on OnFinality Cloud - North Virginia, our own private hardware and self service Cloud

This allows us to support the decentralisation of the Polkadex Network while delivering exceptional performance at a competitive price.

Service Details
===============

Our Polkadex Parachain API service commenced on 16th August 2023. In the first 6 weeks (from inception to 30th September 2023) it:

-   Served a total of 27 million (27,624,644) responses

-   The highest daily total was 946 thousand responses (946,191)  in a single 24 hour period

-   Our rolling 7 day average at the end of this period was over 600,000 responses each day

At the end of September, in Polkadex parachain's first running month, the uptime was 99.79%. You can always see live data of our API service on our public [status page](https://status.onfinality.io/).

OnFinality's Polkadex Parachain API was paused during November 2023 and was brought back online in December 2023 on request of the Polkadex team.

Costings
--------

We are using a fixed price to allow us to bill in advance and to simplify the administration of this proposal, as well as provide cost clarity to both parties. This proposal includes combined running costs for our infrastructure for Polkadex for Q1 and Q2 2024  (January, February, March, April, May, and June). 

The total combined running cost is USD $2,400. This is all inclusive of capital and operating expenses, administration time from OnFinality DevOps, onboarding costs, backup costs, and all other monitoring and right-sizing by our team.

This is a special one-off rate provided to Polkadex for supporting the continuation of this service after OnFinality's Universal Polkadot Parachains initiative; standard pricing would be $620/month.

**Read the full proposal here:** [https://docs.google.com/document/d/179IhXmeHV_8CbckdF-8MttcHpxxXfzwWPU99MRLyquI/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/179IhXmeHV_8CbckdF-8MttcHpxxXfzwWPU99MRLyquI/edit?usp=sharing)

**Problem Statement and Audience:** 
- Setting up blockchain infrastructure is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive, especially for those without server development expertise.
- The audience is the Polkadex community who require access to secure nodes at low costs.

**Significance:** 
- Running a full node continuously is costly, and production-level infrastructure requires constant attention and expensive scaling.
- OnFinality's shared node API service reduces costs and provides global scalability, making it easier and more affordable for users to access the Polkadex protocol.

**Proposed Solution:** 
- OnFinality offers a public RPC service that manages and distributes nodes across the world, ensuring global scalability and meeting certain service levels.
- They provide a shared API service for low-traffic dApps and also offer one-click deploy dedicated Polkadex nodes for cloud deployment.

**Expected Outcomes:** 
- Reduced barriers to accessing the Polkadex protocol by minimizing costs and providing secure nodes.
- Improved performance and reliability with a minimum of 99.99% uptime and fast service.
- More value for API key customers with features like geolocation insights and Trace API support.
- Cost optimization with competitive pricing and exceptional performance.

#2383 High Performance Public Infrastructure for Polkadex Parachain (Q1 & Q2, 2024)