
Whitepaper
​
Blueprint for Decentralized Cloud Computing
-
iExec aims at providing decentralized applications running on the blockchain a scalable, secure and easy access to the services, data-sets and computing resources they need.
-
iExec leverages a set of research technologies that have been developed at the INRIA and CNRS research institutes in the field of Desktop Grid computing.
-
The idea of Desktop Grid (aka. Volunteer Computing) is to collect the computer resources that are underutilized on the Internet to execute very large parallel applications at the fraction of the cost of a traditional supercomputer.
-
iExec relies on XtremWeb-HEP, a mature, solid, and open-source Desktop Grid software which implements all the needed features: fault-tolerance, multi-applications, multi-users, hybrid public/private infrastructure, deployment of virtual images, data management, security and accountability, and many more.
-
iExec is developing a new Proof-of-Contribution (PoCo) protocol, that will allow off-chain consensus.
-
iExec aims to deploy a scalable, high-performance, secure and manageable infrastructure sidechain that will promote a new form of distributed governance, involving key HPC, big data and cloud industry leaders.
Background
-
iExec is built upon the work our team members have done at the INRIA and CNRS research institutes in the field of Desktop Grid computing since 2000.
-
Our breakthrough innovations in the area of large scale data processing, data management, parallel computing, security and dependability, QoS technologies and interoperability have resulted in over 80 scientific papers in top scientific conferences and journals.
-
The iExec team was instrumental in establishing the European Desktop Grid Infrastructure, transparently executing millions of jobs on more than 200,000 nodes and working with organizations like Large Hadron Collider.
Current Limitations
-
Blockchain Computing Challenges
-
This represents a potential revolution in designing and executing services such as investment, finance, crowdfunding, internet of things, insurance, prediction markets, gambling, distributed data processing, and many more - in essence, disrupting a wide swath of centralized incumbents.
-
Despite their unique promise, blockchains offer very limited computing capacities to run decentralized applications: few kilobytes of storage, very inefficient virtual machine and very high latency protocol.
-
-
Traditional Computing Infrastructure Challenges
-
there is a growing demand for computing power from industries and scientific communities to run large applications and process huge volumes of data.
-
cloud and HPC infrastructures are complex and expensive.
-
data centers consume massive amounts of energy for running servers and the cooling systems.
-
This is not only costly but can have a huge negative impact on the environment.
-
The iExec Solution
-
Technical Overview
-
iExec will support the emerging class of blockchain-based distributed applications and enable cost effective high-performance computing by building a decentralized cloud infrastructure.
-
iExec envisions a new ecosystem of companies offering storage, computer farms, data providers, web hosting, and SaaS applications, all conducting business with each other through iExec.
-
By easing the access to such machines, a distributed cloud would allow to drastically decrease the environmental footprint of data centers, while bringing the data closer to their producers and consumers.
-
-
Core Value Proposition
-
Functionalities like sharing spare cycles, using servers in a compensatory approach and usage of resources from different providers without the hassle of resource management allows new use cases and simple additional monetization.
-
Transparent reputation of resource providers will reward reliable providers, with integrated Quality-of-Service controls providing the required level of computing resources
-
Market Opportunity
-
The Perfect Timing for Go-to-Market
-
The emergence of blockchain Proof-of-Work tokens has resulted in vast pools of computing resources that are optimized to seek the highest return on investment, providing ample resources on the supply side.
-
Smart contracts have reached the point where they can include all the complexity of a market network for decentralized computing resources, therefore vastly simplifying the infrastructure.
-
In addition to traditional cloud computing users, a new breed of distributed applications is coming into prominence, disrupting the incumbents and showing potential great promise for the future.
-
-
The Blockchain Market
-
In 2017, more than $4 billion was raised through ICOs around the world.
-
​
​
​
​
​
-
As of the time of writing, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is over $400 billion.
-
In a report published on January 3, 2018, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)’ capital markets’ analyst, Mitch Steves, confidently stated that the cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology applications market could increase thirteenfold in 15 years, reaching $10 trillion.
-
At the same time, Steves warns that cloud service providers are likely to be the most impacted from blockchain technology, with negative results if they don’t manage to adapt.
-
The Dapps Market
-
One key takeaway from his research is that the top dapps in each category are all still very small relative to traditional consumer web and mobile applications.
-
McCann concludes that ‘‘we as an ecosystem need to build better tools and infrastructure for more widespread adoption of dapps.
-
iExec has chosen to focus on dapps as a first step of its adoption strategy, and envisions a crypto sphere of more valuable and diversified applications that make use of the unique properties of blockchain, and grow throughout their journeys to compete with traditional consumer web applications.
-
-
The Traditional Cloud Market
-
In its first forecast of the «whole cloud» opportunity, International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that worldwide whole cloud will reach $554 billion in 2021, which represents more than double those of 2016.
-
The team’s speed-to-market due to a comprehensive existing technological foundation will grant iExec first mover advantage, positioning iExec as the go-to computing provider for the decentralized applications of the future.
-
This unique infrastructure will give birth to the first global market for computing resources, in which these resources are provided by a mix of private data centers and public workers.
-
-
The Edge and Fog Computing Market
-
There are huge growth prospects for the market, with Gartner forecasting that 20.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide by 2020.
-
The cloud segment will grow from a 16.4% segment share in 2018 to a 35% segment share in 2022, to reach $6,3 billion in 2022.
-
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
-
iExec addresses both the edge and fog computing markets, since our open infrastructure can also work with a private pool of workers.
-
iExec actively participates in the elaboration of standards and contribute to building a frame of reference in the fields of fog and edge computing.
-
iExec’s goal and role within this consortium is to accelerate the deployment of fog computing technologies, with a focus on developing blockchain-based open architectures that will support intelligence at the edge of IoT.
-
Competitive Landscape
-
Several projects allow computing on untrusted resources, like Enigma or Truebit. While these pro-jects are interesting from a research point of view, they often rely on solutions that severely limit their applicability, e.g. Multi-Party Computation for Enigma. In contrast, Proof-of-Contribution al-lows iExec to integrate any legacy applications or libraries.
-
iExec doesn’t compete with blockchain-based online storage solution such as Storj, Filecoin or Sia.Instead, iExec allows the monetization of data sets usage, i.e. data access for a particular application execution. Oraclize acts as an intermediary between the smart contract and the source of data providing the guarantee that no-one else can push wrong data within the smart contract. These are complementary technologies, with which synergies can be found.
-
Golem, SONM and iExec share the same vision of a new Internet infrastructure enabled by the blockchain. However, their respective go-to-market strategies differ. Golem aims at first assembling a network to attract regular 3D rendering users to their platform, SONM is approaching the fog and edge computing from the beginning, while iExec first focuses on supporting dapps to build a decentralized cloud that eventually will be competitive enough to attract cloud and HPC users.
-
Advantages of iExec
-
iExec leverages decades of research by its founding members in the field of Desktop Grid com-putting
-
The iExec team was instrumental in establishing the European Desktop Grid Infrastructure, and has therefore strong ties with key industrial companies like Total, IBM, Airbus, Orange, IFP Energy, as well as innovative startups
-
Reduced time-to-market because iExec is backed by mature technologies, such as the XtremWeb-HEP middleware
-
Enterprise-oriented features
-
Proof-of-Contribution (PoCo) is a unique and advanced algorithm that incentives network growth and optimal usage of the platform
-
Revenue model at each version of the development roadmap
-
-
Business Use Case: EFAST
-
An important feature of iExec is the interconnection between applications, services, data and computing resources.
-
eFast is an application created with the goal of helping small investors improve their trading decisions via different services such as clusterization of stocks based on sophisticated computational methods.
-
Each new service developed in eFast will be sold directly on the blockchain, similarly to the Software-as-a-Service approach from traditional cloud.
-
iExec will enable eFast, the application provider, to connect to the data provider Kaiko.com, enabling eFast to run based on a specific user-defined portfolio.
-
AWS or Microsoft Azure, decentralized cloud service providers like Qarnot Computing or Stimergy, or blockchain mining companies like Genesis Mining which are always looking to optimize their resource profitability for example, by running HPC computations in conjunction with mining Ethereum blocks.
Technology Overview
-
Background: Desktop Grid Computing
-
Features
-
Resilience: if a node fails, computing continues on the other working nodes.
-
Efficiency: applications get excellent performances even if computing nodes are highly heterogeneous.
-
Ease of deployment: allows to use any nodes without specific configuration, even those located on the edge of the Internet.
-
-
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
-
Expertise
-
From 2007 to 2012, with several European partners, we established the European Desktop Grid Infrastructure (EDGI). This considerable effort was supported by the European Union, which funded 4 FP7 projects (EDGeS, EDGI, DEGISCO, IDGF). The goal was to provide researchers and academics with additional computing power coming from Desktop Grid infrastructures. EDGI has been a huge success. We connected a dozen of sites (Hungary, France, UK, Spain and The Netherlands) to the main European e-infrastructures, such as the one supporting the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. We gained a considerable experience in connecting clouds and HPC systems to Desktop Grids as we succeeded in transparently executing millions of jobs on more than 200,000 nodes.
-
We collaborated with the key industry players such as Total, Airbus, or IFP. More recently, we received funding from the French National Research Industry in order to provide innovative SMEs access to low-cost, on-demand and secure HPC services. We conducted many interviews with SMEs from the biomedical and e-health sector to understand their needs and requirements and designed MVPs and PoCs. The emergence of blockchain was the key enabler that triggered our motivation that eventually led to the iExec project.
-
-
Proof-of-Contribution
-
Consensus Protocols
-
With iExec, a contribution, i.e. some actions that happen out of the blockchain (like providing a data set, transferring a file, performing a computation, giving a human expertise) will lead to token transactions between participants.
-
Gridcoin proposed the Proof-of-Research protocol to reward volunteers who donated part of their computer time to a great scientific computation [BOINC] such as biomedical research (Folding@Home)
-
-
The Need for PoCo
-
PoCo (for Proof-of-Contribution) is a protocol developed by iExec, which describes the interactions between the different agents and leverage features such as staking to build the required incentives.
-
-
The Role of PoCo within the iExec Platform
-
Two Entities
-
A marketplace
-
A Distributed computing infrastructure
-
-
Agents
-
Workers: They are individuals or companies who own computing resources and are willing to make them available for the computation of tasks against payments in RLC. Similarly to blockchain miners, they want a simple solution that will make their computer part of a large infrastructure that will take care of the details for them.
-
Worker pools: Worker pools organize workers contributions. They are led by a scheduler, who organizes the work distribution. They can either be public and federate resources from anyone or private and try to optimize the management of specific hardware. While not doing the actual computation, they receive a fee for the management of the infrastructure. They compete to attract workers, which they do by achieving an efficient management which guarantees the income of workers.
-
App providers: They deploy applications on the iExec platform. Those applications can be Dapps using the full potential of blockchain-based decentralized Cloud or legacy applications which could benefit from the iExec decentralized Cloud. They can make their applications available for free or ask for a fixed fee for each use of their application.
-
Dataset providers: They own valuable datasets and are willing to make them available, in a secure paradigm that protects their ownership, against payments in RLC.
-
Users: They are individuals or smart contracts paying for the execution of tasks, with or without specific datasets, using the computing resources of workers. They want to make sure that the results they receive are correct.
-
The iExec Hub & Marketplace: This is a smart contract, deployed by iExec, and without privileged access. It acts as an escrow for the different agents’ stake and ensures the security and transparency of all transaction in the iExec ecosystem.
-
-
-
-
iExec Smart Contracts: Matchmaking
-
We envision the iExec blockchain to store smart contracts describing the computing resources characteristics, such as for example amount of RAM, CPU type, disk space
-
-
iExec Smart Contracts: Multi-Criteria Scheduling
-
The iExec team has developed an advanced multi-criteria scheduler [MulticritSched], which allows customers to define their own preferences based on criteria such cost, performance, trust, reliability, and energy efficiency.
-
-
iExec Smart Contracts: A Market Management Framework
-
iExec will develop a simple API to register bids and a set of template contracts to easily deploy customized markets.
-
iExec will also provide web user interface and the JavaScript code that allows interacting with the contracts and easily placing orders.
-
-
iExec Smart Contracts: Result-Checking on the Blockchain
-
Exec will develop a new result checking algorithm that leverages the blockchain and the smart contract features.
-
This will enable for example escrow type mechanisms, where payments for the execution will be deferred until the result has been certified.
-
-
Verified File Transfers
-
It is likely that commercial content distribution will be one of the biggest functions of distributed applications using the iExec blockchain.
-
iExec will guarantee that a content provider was actually able to provide the file, and confirm that the file has actually been downloaded before processing the payment, therefore protecting the data recipient.
-
-
Governance
-
Smart Contract
-
A proposition describing the contract, written similarly to RFC standards
-
The code of the smart contract associated with the description.
-
-
-
Proof-of-Concepts
-
Examples
-
Video transcoding: Ffmpeg, a complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video.
-
Physics simulation: Guineapigpp, simulation of beam-beam interactions in high energy e+e-colliders.
-
Digital signal processing (DSP): University of Westminster.
-
Physics Computation (ISDEP): Fusion, solving the dynamics of fusion plasma.
-
Audio Analysis: Dart, a framework for Distributed Audio Analysis and Music Information Retrieval.
-
Optimization Algorithms: BNBSS, different type of deterministic and heuristic optimization algorithms for solving global optimization problems.
-
-
The Marketplace for Cloud Resources
-
The Cloud Computing Marketplace
-
Cloud Computing as a Commodity
-
iExec introduces a new paradigm in cloud computing: it will allow the trading of computing re-sources as commodities; in the same way we may observe with resources such as oil, gold or rice.
-
Our vision with iExec is to create the first global market for computing resources.
-
-
Workers Pools
-
Each worker pool is managed by a scheduler, whose responsibility is to distribute tasks to workers.
-
An interesting feature is that several public worker pools will compete, therefore allowing for the best possible quality of service.
-
In the marketplace, you will also find what we call “private” workers pools, where all machines are provided by a single cloud provider running his own scheduler.
-
It means that every dapp can now have access to unlimited off-chain computing resources just by specifying this triplet.
-
-
The iExec Marketplace
-
The marketplace provides an easy-to-use interface so that users and developers can see how the market and ecosystem is dynamically evolving.
-
-
Pay-per-Task
-
Conversely, worker pools will be able to benchmark their infrastructures against the reference machine.
-
-
-
The DApp store
-
On the journey of becoming a cutting-edge cloud network, iExec has launched the first-ever DApp Store for decentralized applications in mid-December 2017.
-
Users will be able to browse through the existing dapps and use their favorites, while developers can submit their own dapps and earn money if they wish to monetize them.
-
In order to boost the development of applications on the blockchain, iExec will organize regular challenges aimed at funding the most innovative and impactful applications relying on the iExec cloud resources
-
​
​
​
​
-
The Data Marketplace
-
The Data Marketplace allows anyone to sell data, whether it is an application that accumulates data, big corporations or individuals.
-
Together, the iExec Cloud Marketplace, DApp Store, and Data Marketplace represent the three bricks of the triptych that will power blockchain-based decentralized applications and beyond.
-
Financials
-
Revenues
-
Partnerships with resource providers (V2) and application providers (V4)
-
Providing a private mode for applications/data/servers (V3)
-
Providing advanced services for DApps (V5)
-
Monetization possibilities from the iExec DApp Store
-
Advanced financial services on cloud resources
-
Roadmap
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Team
​
Gilles Fedak – CEO and Founder
-
Research Scientist at INRIA – 13 years 3 months
-
The French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation is a French national research institution focusing on computer science and applied mathematics. Founded in 1967 and has a budget of 235 Million EUR
-
-
Ph.D. in Computer Science
Haiwu He – Co-founder
-
Professor at Chinese Academy of Sciences – Current
-
The Chinese Academy of Sciences, with historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republic of China era, is the national academy for the natural sciences of the People's Republic of China. Founded in 1949
-
-
Innovation Transfer Research Engineer at ENS Lyon – 2 years
-
The École normale supérieure de Lyon is a highly selective grande école located in Lyon, France. It is one of France's four Écoles normales supérieures, training researchers and teachers in the sciences and the humanities. Endowment of 110 Million EUR and 2K students was founded in 1880
-
-
Ph.D. in Computing Sciences
Oleg Lodygensky – CTO
-
Chef de project calcul distribute et Cloud at CNRS – 23 years 8 months
-
Ph.D. in Informatique Distribue
Ugo Plouviez – Lead Java Developer
-
Senior Software Engineer at Seekers Capital Group – 1 year 1 month
-
Intern at Societe Generale – 6 months
-
French multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Paris. Revenue of 24 billion EUR
-
-
Masters in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science
Victor Bonhomme – Full-stack Engineer
Hadrien Croubois – Scientific Consultant
-
Intern at LIRIS – 5 months
-
PhD in computer science
Francois Branciard – Ethereum Developer
-
Tech Manager at Smile Open Source Solutions – 7 months
-
Build Center Manager, Responsible technique at Orange – 6 years 2 months
-
French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 256 million customers worldwide and employs 95,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, the group had revenue of €40 billion.
-
Jean – Charles Cabelguen – Chief Innovation & Adopation
-
M&A and Corporate Development Manager, Business Development Manager at ALTEN – 4 years 1 month
-
Founded in 1988, ALTEN is a French multinational technology consulting and engineering company with offices in 20 countries. 2 billion EUR in Revenue
-
-
PhD in Biomechanics
Wassim Bendella – Business Developer
-
Research Analyst for Cointelegraph – 8 months
-
Assistant Project Manager at Shell – 5 months
-
Management Inter at Peugeot France – 2 months
-
Masters in Information Management
Blaise Cavalli – Business Developer
-
Senior Consultant at In Extenso Innovation Croissance – 11 months
-
Development and valorization of an innovation project at Schneider Electric – 4 months
-
Schneider Electric SE is a European multinational corporation that specializes in energy management, automation solutions, spanning hardware, software, and services. Stock Ticker SU (EPA)
-
-
Assistant assembler at GE Energy – 1 month
-
GE Power is an American energy techniques company, owned by General Electric. GE Power is the largest energy techniques and selling energy company in the world. Founded in 2008
-
-
Masters in Engineering/Industrial Management
Mircea Moca – Business Developer
-
CEO at SynergyCrowds – Current
-
Invited Researcher at Inria – 2 months
-
PhD in Cybernetics and Statistics
Julien Beranger – Head of Communications
-
Customer Service Manager at OpenClassrooms – 1 year 8 months
-
OpenClassrooms is an online education platform for vocational training, providing courses in IT, technology, entrepreneurship, and digital skills. 2.5 Million users, was founded in 1999
-
-
Masters in Chinese Studies
TEAM OF 18
Partners & Backers
​
Chinese Academy of Science
Inria
Enterprise Ethereum Alliance
Genesis Mining
-
Largest cloud computing mining company with 2 million users.
CNRS
The Cointelegraph
Stimergy
-
We believe in an eco-friendly alternative to the energy consuming datacenters of today, because digital issues have to be supported the most consciously possible to assume the environmental challenges of tomorrow
Intel
Ubisoft
Journal du Coin
Shopin
Flixxo
Signals
-
Signals aims to disrupt the cryptotrading industry by lowering the barrier to creating algorithmic trading models, even for users without any programming skills.
Docker
-
Docker is the company driving the container movement and the only container platform provider to address every application across the hybrid cloud.
ICONOMI
-
ICONOMI is a fintech start-up company, developing a blockchain-based ICONOMI digital asset management platform.
ICOAGE.com
ICO365.com
Articles
​
​
​
https://iex.ec/news/intel-and-iexec-collaboration-privacy-preserving-offchain-computing/
Intel and iExec have started a collaboration on privacy-preserving offchain computing. In a joint presentation with Intel, iExec has performed a live demonstration of its product using Intel SGXsolutions.
https://iex.ec/news/iexec-and-ubisoft-collaboration-start-up-program-at-station-f/
The Ubisoft Start-Up Program Explores Opportunities of Blockchain Technologies and Augmented Reality for the Entertainment Industry
https://iex.ec/news/iexec-dev-letter-17-on-gpu-ibm-think-new-dapps%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8amarch-28-2018/
Currently available in early access, Data Guard on IBM Cloud, powered by Fortanix Runtime Encryption platform, uses Intel® SGX technology and offers easy to use and powerful services that accelerate the protection of decentralized applications.
https://iex.ec/news/iexec-project-update-03-ibm-think-2018-21-march-2018/
iExec was invited by IBM to present this solution at this year’s IBM Think in Las Vegas, taking place from 19th to 22nd March. iExec will also show how the platform allows participants to contribute and monetize their own computing resources, and how Data Guard can be integrated to secure this decentralized peer to peer computation.
https://iex.ec/news/iex-ec-announces-high-profile-board-advisors/
-
Business Advisor: Aurélien Menant, founder and CEO, Gatecoin
-
Business Advisor: Han Feng, President, Digital Assets Coalition of Asia (DACA)
-
Financial Support: HyperChain Capital, Fintech Blockchain Group (FBG), Wanxiang Blockchain Lab
-
Industry Partner: Marco Streng, founder and CEO, Genesis Mining
-
Industry Partner: Christophe Perron, CEO, Stimergy
-
Industry Advisor: Feller Gao, Strategy Cooperation Director, Huawei Technology
-
Academic Partner: CAS, Chinese Academy of Sciences
-
Academic Partner: CNRS, French National Research Center
-
Academic partner: INRIA, French National Institute of Computer and Automation
-
Legal Advisor: Simon Polrot, Laywer, Fieldfisher
-
Investment Platform: ICO365, imtoken, ICOAge
-
Security Advisor: Open Zeppelin
https://iex.ec/news/nvidia-interview-about-iex-ec-at-sc16/
iEx.ec co-founders Dr. Gilles Fedak and Prof. Haiwu He get interviewed by nVIDIA at SC16 for GPU computing for Blockchain based distributed Cloud. They talked about their main ideas and technologies about distributed Cloud computing using GPUs and Blockchain in their iEx.ec project.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7hom98/why_i_hold_rlc_iexec_and_why_you_could_be/
Despite all these very solid arguments iExec underperformed notably on one point: marketing and public awareness. The little that has been done was made hastily and with no real strategy, they participated to a lot of conferences/shows to present their technologies to companies like IBM/Intel/Docker/etc… but they forgot the average developer and crypto-enthusiast, in consequence nothing was done since the ICO in April to encourage community growth or vulgarize the project and now it’s playing against them, that said if you just heard about the project it’s an opportunity because not many has.
Videos
​
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwWxZWvKVHn3CXnmDooLWtA/videos?disable_polymer=1
CoinCheckUp
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Conclusion
I would give iExec an B+ rating. iExec is a new decentralized cloud computing platform that is blockchain-based. It aims to tackle the current limitations of centralized cloud computing that are holding business and innovation back. A decentralized cloud connects users to one another, whether server providers, application providers, data providers or end users. All manner of business can be executed on the iExec cloud. At the same time the system is fast, efficient and secure. This summary came from coincheckup and clearly summarizes what iExec is. I believe their connections are strong, their team can be improved, and their ideas are brilliant and challenging. All of these need to be proven which is why it hasn’t reached an A yet.











