NewsAlgorand and Guardrail make blockchain accessible and affordable for small businesses in the cloud

Algorand and Guardrail make blockchain accessible and affordable for small businesses in the cloud

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Algorand Foundation

September 8th, 2021 - Guardrail, a cloud solutions provider that makes rapid cloud adoption easy for small and medium enterprises (MSME), is proud to accept a grant from the Algorand Foundation that will deliver unprecedented cloud capabilities to the Algorand community.

The grant provides funding to enhance the Algorand Network with solutions that enable single-command, self-deployments of Algorand’s entire node infrastructure on AWS, Azure, and GCP.  The node variants will be available as the Algorand Blockchain to Guardrail subscribers as self-contained, open-source solutions on AWS, Azure, and GCP Marketplace. They will be validated by Algorand’s core research team and kept up to date on the latest MainNet node versions as found on the Algorand GitHub.

The solution enables developers to build Algorand-enabled applications with API services running on top of their own regionally isolated consensus cluster, giving them complete control over their infrastructure with a single command.  

This release is the result of a three-month collaboration with cloud providers, who confirmed their customers, and the blockchain community, prefer a push-button, open-source deployment model. This key milestone puts the ownership of innovation back into the hands of the community and will expand Algorand’s global network coverage with reliable, cost-effective nodes. Sean Lee, CEO, Algorand Foundation

The grant also funds the completion of an IP Governance solution that uses Algorand Standard Assets and Atomic Swaps to make source-code contributions awardable as IP tokens, with settlements via USDC, ACH, or other wallets. This innovation will give developers unlimited and affordable access to the best talent in the industry.

We don’t publish our subscription pricing, but to put it in perspective, each solution has a street value of 100,000 USD: multi-environment CI/CD pipelines that push-button deploy extensible, production-ready serverless APIs, iOS and Android applications, and ML-enabled applications. The people who built the solutions get paid a royalty every time our subscribers adopt them. That’s how we keep the price affordable. If a subscriber wants to extend the solutions, they can commission that extension and get reimbursed when the next subscriber adopts it. That’s how we keep the overall value up for our customers and our partners. On top of that, we offer continuous support with rapid-response 1-hour SLA. - Chris Econn, CEO, Guardrail

The grant advances Algorand’s initiative to drive mass adoption through the public cloud, and will bring Guardrail one step closer to its mission to drive mass cloud adoption for businesses that need it the most.

Mass blockchain adoption can’t happen without mass cloud adoption. Cloud adoption is about ownership. Algorand is the most secure blockchain that can execute financial transactions at a rate equal to legacy payment systems. If customers want to access it in the cloud, they need to go through a 3rd party aggregator that offers partial functionality, with non-transparent pricing and rate limiting. We’ve been working with AWS for 13 years, since it was founded.  Rate limiting and innovation don’t mix; the limitation leads to customers abandoning the adoption. Giving up ownership is the first step away from cloud adoption, and two steps away from blockchain adoption, resulting in businesses either undermining or missing out on attractive growth opportunities. Chris Econn, CEO, Guardrail

To support decentralization and affordable access to blockchain and cloud technology, Guardrail will release the IP Governance solution to its subscribers on the AWS Marketplace.

If you are interested in submitting a project for support from the Algorand Foundation Grant program, please apply here.

### About Guardrail

Since the launch of AWS in 2003, Guardrail’s co-founders have led 50 early-stage, "born-in-the-cloud" startups from distress into acquisitions exceeding $500M, including the first ride-sharing app, the first social gaming platform, and the first mobile social network.  Most recently, Guardrail’s core team led AWS’s #1 consulting partner and the fifth fastest-growing solution provider on the CRN’s 2019 Global Fast Growth 150.

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