The Polkadot Cloud

Ecosystem
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From: Cloud Computing | Cloud Native Glossary

Cloud computing offers CPU power, storage, and network capabilities over the internet, enabling scalable and flexible access to resources across global data centers. It spans private clouds, dedicated to single organizations for security and control, and public clouds, open for widespread use, optimizing cost and scalability.

Organizations can use cloud computing to rent computing resources on demand without the burden of managing physical infrastructure.

I don’t want to get into an endless loop, so I’ll just highlight a key detail: the SaaS model is built on top of the PaaS model, which in turn is built on top of the IaaS model. When you refer to general computing and network resources, you’re referring to the IaaS model. The cloud computing stack doesn’t align well with the idea of saying that Polkadot is a cloud provider. If you’re talking about a Web3 SaaS, it’s misplaced—similar to saying that smart contracts are FaaS deployed in a cloud or something like that. In my understanding, the models are different and mixing terminology generates confusion.

Particularly no.

The paradigm shift is from clouds to protocol networks, aka “cloudless computing”.

From the cloud to the network
The new paradigm shift is from the cloud to the protocol network. Protocol networks are groups of loosely affiliated enterprises that provide globally available services like ledger, compute, and storage. Just as serverless is the culmination of the cloud, this move to protocol networks will culminate in cloudless APIs, leading to applications driven by protocols with incentives and capabilities that go beyond what the cloud’s location-based paradigm can offer. They run on any cloud or other data-center and reward service providers through fees they collect from users.

Source: The Paradigm Shift to Cloudless Computing – O’Reilly

1 Like
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@shawntabrizi I must say - very solid vision and mission. The main reason Polkadot started to slow down comparing to the market and its peers is the complexity of what it is and what it does, and what is proposed here is an elegant solution. It’s a single, simple vision from which we can work with, even though it shakes the foundation of all parachains remaining in the ecosystem. It even breaks the business value for some of them. But it is probably the best way Polkadot can reclaim its glory and start growing quickly. Let’s build!