4EVERLAND

Overall architecture diagram
Bucket

Inspiration

Nowadays the Web3 sphere lacks an important component. It could be called "I trust my Ethereum address, asset, and smart contract, but the Dapp that I give access to can disappear or be blocked". Or "My collection is worth a lot, but it's stored on a single-node storage server, and NFT's value will disappear if a server is closed. Or even “My DeFi project accessibility is great in Europe but not in Asia, so it affects the user experience". It is clear that the centralized, permission-based, single-node data service model doesn't meet the increasing needs of Web3.0 users for a safe and free storage service. To solve this problem, we created a solution based on IPFS. It's a decentralized, self-organized, high-performance, low-cost data storage service. It integrates storage, computing, and network forming a complete Web3.0 cloud platform. The solution is to help Web3.0 developers lose the constraints of centralized platforms. It provides them with safe, stable, globally accelerated service with eternal links and network.

What it does

4EVERLAND is a cloud computing platform that aims to help developers be effective in Web3.0 apps. It contains global acceleration, privacy protection, basic blockchain storage-driven development, and other technical features. It is set up by Swarm, which is accessed by content consensus, on IPFS. It improves Data I/O performance and develops TEE-based storage challenge proofs to achieve stable storage, more efficient content distribution, convenient networks, and file reading. Furthermore, it also can prevent storage fraud. 4EVERLAND provides customers with product development such as DWeb hosting, decentralized gateway, decentralized domain, digital marketing, data service, and protocol. It helps developers have one-touch access to Web3.0. Together with IPFS and Filecoin 4EVERLAND is building a Web3.0 infrastructure service with global acceleration, privacy protection, permanent links, and a distribution network.

How we built it

4EVERLAND has organized a series of nodes deployed all over the world through a unique cryptographic and economic model. Their collaborative work provides distributed storage of content, and global acceleration, and improves the stability and reliability of IPFS data storage and the access efficiency of the gateway. It meets a variety of business application scenarios. At the same time, through cooperation with Filecoin miners, we realize rapid storage of data in the Filecoin network. Our whole implementation architecture is as follows:

Storage node: a client that includes a synchronization service (Cluster Service) and an IPFS node, which is compatible with the IPFS protocol, and automatically joins the node cluster (Swarm) through the node election results of the smart contract module. Specific content persistent storage.
Proof of Storage: Proof of storage designed for data availability, we call it PoSC (Proof of Storage Challenge) based on TEE, the challenger can generate a proof of storage challenge by randomly combining CIDs, and the challenged node needs to respond to the challenge within a certain time period to prove that the content is indeed stored, honest nodes will be rewarded, and dishonest nodes will be punished.
Gateway Node: Gateway node can help users select the nearest storage node to access the content in the 4EVERLAND network. It contains the following modules: DDNS; Data I/O optimization; Cert Manager module.
Smart contract: It is deployed on multiple chains such as Ethereum, Polygon, and BSC, it includes core functions such as node election, payment, and community governance.
Upper-layer applications: upper-layer applications based on the underlying capabilities provided by storage nodes and gateway nodes. At present, we have launched 3 core products, including:
- Hosting is a DWeb deployment product that helps developers quickly deploy websites based on IPFS and Filecoin.
- Bucket is a decentralized storage product compatible with AWS S3, which helps developers upload and store files to IPFS and Filecoin networks in a safe, convenient, and highly efficient way.
- IPFS Gateway is an IPFS global acceleration gateway that provides gateway services such as global acceleration, custom domain and SSL certificates.

How to use

4EVERLAND has now launched 3 core products, including Hosting, Bucket, IPFS Gateway, etc., which can provide all users with solutions such as DWeb hosting, decentralized storage, global acceleration gateway, decentralized domain, digital marketing system, and data services. It can be used directly on our dashboard: https://dashboard.4everland.org

More tutorials can be found in our docs and youtube channel: https://docs.4everland.org https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9gDft8jnTt_1yrtLfsUq0w

Challenges we ran into

We have a lot of experience in IPFS-related technology research and haven't met too many challenges. We have completed the construction of IPFS-based storage nodes and gateway nodes. At present, we are developing Filecoin data storage. Although we have made a lot of progress with the help of some Filecoin miners, we are still facing some technical details. But we are learning from Filecoin-related communities and documents to solve them. Besides, as we are attracting users with our free services, lots of users are instantly joining and using the IPFS storage service provided by 4EVERLAND, which is our new challenge.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Currently, we have more than 35K apps that choose us to host websites or store data. Among these projects, there are Snapshots, Relation, and Uniswap communities. These communities are well-known DeFI projects. According to our community data, we have an obvious advantage in performance and other aspects.

Besides, with our excellent functions and service experience, 4EVERLAND has established in-depth cooperation with Polygon, zkSync, Harmony, Near, Flow, OKC, KCC, and other ecosystems, and has become the infrastructure solution for their ecosystems.

Today's 4EVERLAND owns a strong community and developer base. The entire community is growing rapidly, and we are very proud that we can help developers enjoy the developing experience of IPFS and Filecoin through 4EVERLAND.

What we learned

Working with IPFS we've learned that it can provide 4EVERLAND with a high-performance and distributed user-controlled storage layer, which is very suitable for daily content operations with a large amount of performance. Moreover, IPFS is predictable. Multihash in IPFS supports different hash algorithms and has many advantages. When the performance of computers becomes more powerful in the future, developers can use a stronger hash function (such as sha3-512) by configuring the corresponding 0x13 code as the Multihash in the CID identification prefix. It will help 4EVERLAND quickly adapt to high-end performance products. Also, all files stored on 4EVERLAND are real. Filecoin can provide a strong and trustless archive layer, which can help us strengthen the integrity of files and data.

What's next for 4EVERLAND

We will continue to improve products, enhance the influence of our products, promote brand power, and continue to promote the development of the IPFS ecosystem:

We will support more public chains, realize the integration with IPFS and Filecoin, and support multi-chain login and multi-chain payment.
Actualize the integration of Filecoin, implement decentralized hosting and data storage based on Filecoin compatible with Web2 development experience to reduce the threshold of using Filecoin.
More and safer allocation of storage nodes and gateway nodes to achieve more stable data network services;
The computing capabilities provided by ecological solutions such as integration, including Filecoin FVM, provide developers with a complete set of network, storage, and computing.
Open underlying capabilities, which include storage, network, computing, and open upper-layer capabilities of applications. Encourage developers to develop more upper-layer applications based on these basic capabilities such as IPFS and Filecoin, and boost better Web3 development.