NOIA. A Distributed Content Delivery Layer

Introduction

Nowadays, internet has become a necessity, not only as an information medium, but as a means to share all kinds of information in real time with people around the world. However, in order to make this possible, it was necessary to implement a technology that would make the contents arrive faster to all users.

However, these technologies are expensive and, since they are the only means of transmission, they sometimes can cause delays or even drops of Internet service worldwide for considerable periods of time.

In this report we will see how NOIA offers a novel solution to create a network layer that will improve the delivery of content in a more efficient and less expensive way. Avoiding delays and internet drops.

World Wide Web (WWW)

We all know those acronyms, and most people I know would tell me that it is the internet and they will immediately think of Google or YouTube. Well, they are not entirely wrong, however, these three letters represent a system of interlaced hypertext documents, which are stored on web servers and can be viewed with a browser (such as Google Chrome, Mozilla FireFox, Safari, etc). This is general knowledge. Nonetheless, it is important to keep this in mind for a while.

When you want to see a web page (hypertext document or html), you need to type the URL in the browser location address (or you can use a web searcher) and the browser is responsible for establishing a connection (as seen in the image) with the server, where it is located the web page that we want to see. Once, the connection is established, web server sends us, all the way back, the content of hypertext document. At first this worked like that. To see a web page, there always was a delay depending on the distance, the speed of the connection, network traffic, how congested the server was, and even more, the delay was incremented if the document contained images.

Imagine the distance that this information should travel (thousands of miles).

With the evolution of technology, the web pages evolved, became dynamic. So you could hear sound, watch videos and flash animations. But this made the pages even heavier and, therefore, slower.

This is where the CDNs appear, to solve this problem. CDN is a content distribution network (as indicated by its acronyms), that is, it is a conglomerate of interconnected and distributed servers in several parts of the world, generally within data centers (facilities equipped to keep computer equipment or storage servers, with redundant power supplies, security and backup systems). The function of this informatics infrastructure is to store part of the information and content of the websites and serve them to the end user.

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Thereby, web pages can be seen faster, since these CDNs are geographically distributed (each of these established places are called POP or point of presence) and obviously are closer than the web servers of origin. And its main function is to store copies of the websites (what is called caching) and distribute them to the user who requests them.

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Two of the largest companies that account for 50% of the CDN market worldwide are Akamai and Amazon's Cloudfront.

The problem presented by these infrastructures, in addition to the cost for their service (200TB transferred monthly would cost approximately $ 30,000 using Akamai); this is due, obviously, to the maintenance and updating costs of each POP. In addition, they are systems that work under centralized schemes, that is, in theory if the central node is damaged, the entire network would fall. As it is the case of Amazon, a few months ago, when for a human error during the maintenance of their equipment, they made the Internet went down for more than 4 hours (See article)

For this reason, today I come to present NOIA, a decentralized ecosystem based on blockchain technology, which offers a more efficient and less expensive content distribution layer; thus, offering a totally novel solution.

NOIA Network

NOIA, is a decentralized content distribution network, based on the blockchain, which takes advantage of bandwidth and unused storage of all computers connected to the internet (PC, laptops, servers, etc.) to improve the delivery of web content in a distributed, efficient and less expensive way.

This makes it possible through a P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing protocol along with artificial intelligence algorithms, which turns each computer into a POP of web content delivery. Creating a decentralized network that improves the delivery of content in many aspects, including cost.

One of the peculiarities of this network is that it covers more distances than conventional CDNs, since it reaches places where the Internet is scarce. Thus, improving the performance of the internet.

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The architecture of NOIA is not made to compete with existing solutions, but rather to offer an alternative for hosting any type of CDN content or service.

Unlike conventional CDNs, its decentralized approach allows it to be more stable since it does not have a centralized point of failure.

The blockchain technology allows NOIA to create an autonomous economy over the content delivery. The NOIA token will incentive participants to share their space and bandwidth resources, among other things. The owners of the websites and the hosting services will be able to buy NOIA tokens to acquire the content delivery service.

NOIA Business Case

Applicability

The applicability of NOIA is unlimited, since its architecture and technology allows any web service to use the NOIA system (CSL JS Library) to distribute its content through the decentralized network of NOIA nodes.

As mentioned above, the NOIA system does not intend to compete with the large companies that offer CDN services, but it will function as an optimized distribution layer to complement the CDN services, even as a distribution support system if necessary. Since NOIA greatly improves the way to deliver data through the internet, decreasing the bottlenecks.

NOIA ecosystem features allow adapting it to any data transfer system, in a friendly and simple way. No need to change the existing infrastructure and without any risk.

NOIA is easy to configure, both in Workers nodes and in hosting and web servers service providers.

NOIA can deliver any type of content: HTTP (web), FTP (file transfer), IPFS (decentralized storage of files), audio and video streaming, image hosting among others.

This means that hosting services and web servers can implement NOIA immediately on their platforms and start paying only for the content delivered successfully.

Use cases

Standalone solution

NOIA serves as a solution for small web content providers, as it is cheaper and does not require any additional equipment installation. NOIA is a ready-to-use platform, which facilitates its installation in hosting services.

NOIA reduces hosting costs since the amount of data transferred by the hosting provider are lesser because the Workers Nodes are responsible for constantly delivering the content to users, making the web server save on data transfer.

Undoubtedly, NOIA will make the provider's service much faster and more efficient globally, thanks to its network of nodes and its CSL architecture.

Additional layer to existing CDN solution

Most large and medium content providers use CDN services, since they generally transfer more than 100 TB per month. For these cases, NOIA offers the perfect solution to optimize and improve delivery worldwide, especially in those places where the Internet is low or almost scarce. Reducing data transfer and therefore, the cost spent on CDN services.

Thanks to its CSL architecture, if the content is not stored (cached) in the Worker Nodes, the requests will be redirected to the nearest CDN. In addition, NOIA can predict network traffic and offer content caching resources, so it serves as a backup layer to existing CDNs.

In the following image you can see how NOIA serves as a backup layer for Amazon web and Cloudfront services in a transparent manner.

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Content distribution layer for decentralized content hosting

NOIA can also serve to deliver content over decentralized services such as IPFS, Sia, Filecoin, Storj among others. Most of these services offer web hosting in a decentralized manner, however, NOIA network can improve speed and efficiency by delivering content based on network traffic and the location of the users that issue the requests globaly.

In the following image you can see how NOIA serves as a content delivery layer for a decentralized scheme.

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NOIA Token

The NOIA ecosystem has its own native token, NOIA token (as mention before), ERC20 compatible and will define the autonomous economy of the system.

NOIA token will be used for:

Define the value of the data transfer corresponding to the content delivery, therefore, a NOIA token will represent 5 GB of data transfer
Network Governance: Master Nodes will be rewarded for their work and will use the NOIA tokens to define their reputation and participate in the governance of the network. Master Node will be penalized monetarily in case of performing malicious work and will decrease its reputation within the system, being able to be eliminated from it

It is important to note that each Worker Node will have an implementation of a NOIA Wallet, so they will be able to receive and transfer NOIA Tokens; Being an ERC20 compatible token, it will work just like an Ethereum Wallet (being able to backup and recover).

The flow of NOIA token value is determined by buyers and sellers in the market. Buyers are all those businesses that need content delivery services and must purchase NOIA tokens to pay for the service. The NOIA system will have a smart payment gateway, through which the NOIA tokens can be purchased for dollars or Euros. On the other hand, vendors will earn NOIA tokens by running the Workers Node application on their computers, but the earnings will be estimated depending on the resources shared by their equipments (storage space, bandwidth and availability). However, it is estimated that the initial earnings could be approximately USD 50 per month.

NOIA has already established partnerships with private investors, such as Blockcrafters, Blockwater, Invictus Capital, which resulted in soft cap of $4m already reached. Token sale date and other details are to be announced soon.

NOIA’s Technical features

NOIA’s architecture

As we can see NOIA is formed by two layers:

Governance Lay. Layer responsible for defining the distribution of the NOIA tokens between the nodes and the participants that makes up the NOIA ecosystem. This operation will be based on the programming of smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.
Content scaling layer (CSL). Represents the backbone of the NOIA system infrastructure; which combines the proprietary protocols of P2P file sharing and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, responsible for handling requests, caching web content, establishing the best routes for delivery and anticipation of network traffic.

Governance Layer (Smart Contracts)

The Governance Layer is a set of smart contracts executed in the Ethereum blockchain (written in the Solidity language) and is in charge of managing, automatically and autonomously, the transactions and payments in NOIA Tokens.

Its two main functions are the following:

Allow customers (companies and organizations that require the content delivery service) to purchase the service and keep track of the amount of data transferred or to transfer through the service, which are calculated in NOIA tokens within their wallet.

Reward the Workers Nodes. The governance Layer will program smart contracts to calculate and transfer the amount of NOIA tokens earned by Workers Nodes. These are calculated depending on the available bandwidth, dedicated storage and node availabilty.

CSL Stack

There are two ways to implement CSL in NOIA:

CSL Cloud Controller. Centralized model, where there is a central entity that controls other CSL systems, which control the Master Nodes and these have control over the Worker Node.

CSL DAO Concept. Decentralized model, with a system of autonomous governance over other CSL systems.

Initially the NOIA ecosystem will be launched using the centralized model to ensure the security of the network. When the network reaches sufficient maturity, the platform will be oriented towards the decentralized approach.

Hierarchical Structure of the CSL

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CSL Cloud Controller

The CSL Cloud Controller is the main element of NOIA system. It is responsible for ensuring the quality of service (QoS), authorizing Master Nodes to comply with the requirements of the governance layer, determining the amount of NOIA tokens to guarantee the level of performance promised to the operators of the websites, balancing the load of the Master Nodes using artificial intelligence algorithms, predicting and anticipating network traffic; as well as control the duration of content stored (smart content caching).

CSL Master Node Client

They are responsible for:

Implementation of the content scaling commands:
Initial caching of the file in CSL: When? Which nodes?
Additional caching of the files in CSL: Which nodes? Which files? When?
Deleting the files from the nodes’ cache: Which nodes? Which files? When?
Request handling / pooling
Load balancing Worker Nodes
Fastest route discovery
Submitting performance metrics to the Cloud Controller

The master node initializes all these processes, however, the Worker Nodes are responsible for executing them.

It is also responsible for instructing the Worker Nodes to download the content and store it or remove it from the cache, depending on the number of requests that this content has.

All the metrics received from the Worker Nodes are sent to the Cloud Controller, to feed the artificial intelligence algorithms and optimize the content scaling process.

CSL Worker Node Client

The Worker Node client is an application compatible with Windows, Linux and MacOS. It allows any person to rent their free space and their bandwidth to act as POP within the NOIA ecosystem. Remuneration will be compensate in NOIA tokens

The Worker Nodes, as we have already seen, are responsible for doing the heavy work, that is, downloading and uploading the web content. The Master Node is in charge of indicating what content they should download and where they should redirect it. It also tells them when to delete it.

They are responsible for:

Implementation of the content scaling commands
Downloading and caching the content from the source
Sharing it with other Worker Nodes in the network
Delivering it to website users

CSL JS library - Server Side

CSL JS Library is an open source application, which must be installed on the web server so that it can use the NOIA system and the CLS Cloud. Its main function is to forward the requests to the Master Node, so this could determine which Worker Node is closer to the user and deliver its cached content.

In case the information requested by the user is not stored in any Worker Node, the Master Node will indicate to the CSL JS Library, so it will download the content directly from the original source and deliver to the user.

Content Scaling in NOIA Network

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Basically it works in the following way: when a user enters a website, whose content is managed by the NOIA system, the CSL JS Library passes the user's requests to the closest Master Node (selected by the Cloud Controller). The Master Node verifies if the content is in the Worker Nodes closest to the user, if so, the Worker Node will be responsible for sending the content to the user; otherwise the Master Node returns an empty list and CSL JS Library is responsible for sending the user the content directly from the web server.

Benefits of CSL

The CSL technology establishes a content scaling network that is completely different from existing market solutions, both centralized and decentralized.

Among the benefits offered by this technology are:

CSL allows storing content for a limited time depending on the demand of the content. Thereby, it optimizes the space shared in the Workers Nodes.
Artificial intelligence algorithms allow CSL technology to predict and optimize routes and traffic network. Likewise, they allow predicting the demand and popularity of the content (files, images, videos, etc.) using information from social networks
The service is scaled through the network of dispersed nodes globally and adapts to the conditions of location and number of requests.
The amount of data transferred by the web server or hosting service is substantially reduced since the Workers Nodes will be in charge of continuously providing the content requested by the users. Therefore, CLS allows hosting services to save large amounts of money in data transfer and reduce internet bottleneck.

All these CSL benefits allow the NOIA system to increase the reach and efficiency of content delivery.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly NOIA offers an incredible alternative for content delivery, more efficient and much cheaper than the other ones. Since most of the CDN market is held by 2 large companies and their prices are significantly high, NOIA is the alternative for small web content providers, due to its ease of use and it is not necessary or change the existing technology nor acquire expensive equipment; also allows to transfer any type of content.

NOIA can also function as an additional layer for existing solutions in the market.

And definitely a good investment, not only because of the quality of the service offered, but also to incentive all users who decide to share their resources of their computers that are not in use (storage, bandwidth and availability) with NOIA tokens; ensuring an entry of money for the common user.

I am already part of NOIA network, and you? What are you waiting to start winning NOIA tokens?

https://dashboard.noia.network/r/f45ad482