Summary

Hello Akash community! We are excited to present our proposal for funding of 150k USD in $AKT (AKT 500,000 as per AKT to USD price at submitting the proposal) from the community pool as a partial retroactive of our past efforts and going forward, to continue developing and building new tools that will facilitate the adoption of the Akash Network. We’re passionate about enhancing the user experience of blockchain and decentralized cloud technologies. With your support, we’re confident that we can take our work to the next level and significantly impact the Akash ecosystem. Thank you for your consideration!

Our initial ask was for 300k USD in $AKT, but after receiving feedback from the community on the proposal, we have decided to split it into two separate proposals. The first proposal will cover the period of Q1 to Q3 2023, while the second proposal will cover Q4 2023 to Q1 2024. The second proposal will be reviewed and submitted shortly before or after completing the first one.

You can view the discussions about this proposal here: https://github.com/orgs/akash-network/discussions/85#discussioncomment-5396318

Use of funds

Most of the funds will be used to pay salaries, operating expenses, infrastructure, contracting design work, attending live events, marketing and miscellaneous expenses of running a business. We’re currently 2 full time software engineers.

While we do have plans to monetize our products in the future to ensure sustainable growth, our immediate priority is to increase the adoption of the Akash Network. To achieve this, we plan to make our products free and easily accessible. This will allow us to reach a wider user base and demonstrate the value of our products, which we believe will ultimately benefit both our users and the Akash ecosystem as a whole.

Achievements and Past Contributions

Over the past two years, our team has made significant contributions to the Akash Network, including the development of:

• Cloudmos Deploy, the number one open source deploy GUI with over 100 stars on github
  • https://github.com/maxmaxlabs/cloudmos-deploy
  • Now improved and in the browser under https://deploy.cloudmos.io/
• Cloudmos Explorer, the primary analytics hub for real-time Akash adoption metrics as well as being a fully functional and real time block explorer powered by our custom made indexer.
  • https://cloudmos.io/akash/dashboard
• Cloudmos Alerts, a customizable alerts system for deployment balance monitoring and other custom alerts
  • https://cloudmos.io/alerts
• SDL Builder, a simple and easy interface to create and edit custom SDL, making it easier to utilize more complex features such as persistent storage and lease ip.
  • https://cloudmos.io/sdl-builder
• Cloud price comparison tool for comparing Akash's cost savings vs. legacy platforms like AWS, GCP and Azure.
  • https://cloudmos.io/price-compare

Since January 2022, our efforts have successfully facilitated the onboarding of numerous new users onto the network, resulting in impressive outcomes such as the creation of 52.6k leases, with 30.8k of those leases being specifically deployed using Cloudmos Deploy, accounting for approximately 58% of all leases created on the Akash network.

Our team's deep understanding of the challenges facing the Akash Network, coupled with our development of critical tools and technologies for cloud parity, positions us perfectly to execute this proposal. We're confident that our past contributions and expertise makes us the ideal team to lead the way forward. With the rise of GPUs and AI, now is the perfect time to invest in the right tools to support future adoption. Our record speaks for itself.

Problems and Proposed Solutions

View details on github: https://github.com/orgs/akash-network/discussions/85#discussioncomment-5396318

Milestones and Projects

The problems and solutions mentioned above wouldn’t necessarily be implemented in the order that they’re mentioned. We plan to execute this plan in roughly 16 months with this proposal focused on the next 8 months.

Here’s the roadmap of how we plan on building and releasing:

Q1 2023

• Migrate desktop app to browser ✅
• Redesign of Cloudmos Deploy front end ✅
• Live shell ✅
• Work in progress
  • New provider stats dashboard and monitoring https://deploy.cloudmos.io/providers
  • Started monitoring provider resource snapshots to have historical data on provider stats

Q2 2023

• Add more analytics on providers, since data about provider resources and uptime status isn’t on chain. This is vital.
  • The work to support historical data for providers is currently being worked on.
  • Implement work on deploy side with direction from sig-analytics
• Merge Cloudmos Explorer with Cloudmos Deploy to provide a single platform with user accounts
  • Improve Cloudmos Deploy application interfaces and user experience.
• Implement provider profiles and reputation system (Q2->Q3)
  • With Cloudmos user accounts, users will be able to create reviews for providers to comment on their experience and rate it with a star rating.
    • Improve our uptime tracking of providers and track further the interactions with the providers, like monitoring if send manifest fails, logs fail, etc.
    • Allow providers to reply to reviews
  • Provider profiles:
    • Build an interface for providers to edit their standardized attributes based on this PRD https://github.com/akash-network/community/tree/main/wg-provider-attributes
    • Extend our interfaces to display these attributes throughout the deployment process.
    • Improve the display of audited attributes
    • Extend provider profiles with custom fields with our database to improve the UX in Cloudmos
    • Improve tracking of supported features for providers like ip leases, persistent storage, etc.
    • Collaborate with Praetor to improve alerting to users when providers plan to have maintenance.
• Improve AuthZ manager
  • Cloudmos currently supports authorizing another address to spend on deployments on your behalf, but the user experience is not optimal.
  • Implement a user interface to manage your authorizations. List, add and revoke.
  • For users who are authorized to deploy, display the amount of AKT they’re authorized for in their dashboard and an easy list of addresses to select when selecting for the depositor when creating a deployment.
  • These feature will enable free trials or faucet management
  • AuthZ manager will enable a single wallet to authorize or revoke access to other team members to deploy without sharing a single private key.
• Integrate the SDL builder in the deployment process
  • Develop multiple versions of the SDL builder to support super simple and advanced use cases

Q3 2023

• Template marketplace where users can publish templates with guides.
  • One click deploy existing applications
  • Publish your own templates
  • Rating system to easily find the best template for the job
  • User public profiles
  • Curating process for template publishing
  • Analytics on the usage
  • Donation system for template creators
  • Reporting system for failing or illegal templates
• Work with sig-analytics to add more on-chain analytics to our indexer.
  • https://github.com/akash-network/community/blob/main/sig-analytics/prd.md
• Implement billing module
  • Monthly expense reports
    • Highlight cost saving compared to big cloud providers
  • Historical charts to monitor costs
• Open source Cloudmos Deploy and give access to our data through an API
  • This will allow all teams to leverage the data collected and used by the Cloudmos team.

View details on github: https://github.com/orgs/akash-network/discussions/85#discussioncomment-5396318

While we work on these projects, we will continuously support the community and adapt our tools to support new features released on the network such as GPUs. The exact roadmap will change and adapt to the network needs to maximize adoption.

Cloudmos will provide regular updates of our progress in the respective special interest groups and working groups. These solutions will continue to push the Akash Network forward with better user experience and increased functionality.

Conclusion

Our proposal can equip the Akash Network with necessary resources to achieve its goals. Our unique expertise ensures a high-quality solution, improving success and user experience. We believe in the vision of the Akash Network and are committed to supporting its growth and development. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Voting Outcomes

• If this proposal passes, 500,000 AKT will be transferred to Cloudmos to sponsor their work. Cloudmos pledges to use the funds to make a best effort attempt to complete the roadmap provided above.
• If this proposal is rejected, Cloudmos will have to find other funding sources and will need to drastically reduce the pace of development. We will also have to re-prioritize our focus as a business

Voting Choices

• If you vote yes you signal your desire to compensate Cloudmos via the Akash Network community pool in order to continue delivering value to the Akash network.
• If you vote no you signal your dissent against compensating Cloudmos via the Akash Network community pool.
• If you veto this proposal you deem it harmful to the network and wish to burn the proposer's AKT.
• If you abstain you signal your desire to contribute to quorum without a preference toward whether the proposal passes or fails.