The Decentralized Storage Alliance (DSA), a consortium of technology industry leaders that empowers enterprises across the world through the use of decentralized storage technologies, working in collaboration with prominent alliance members like Protocol Labs, Supranational, and the Filecoin Foundation, has launched Golden Gate, an advanced software and reference configuration that reduces the costs associated with decentralized file storage by almost half (40%). By reducing latency and making key operations during the data onboarding process more efficient, Golden Gate represents a significant step forward for decentralized storage, making the technology an even more compelling alternative to traditional file storage.
The Filecoin Network relies on computations performed on the data being onboarded in order to ensure network security and enable cryptographic proving, verifiability, and data immutability. However, the hardware required to execute this process, known as “sealing,” often accounts for more than 50% of the total hardware expenses. This poses a challenge for new Storage Providers aiming to join the network and for existing ones seeking to enhance their data onboarding capacity. As the first software release from the DSA, Golden Gate directly addresses this issue and reduces the server costs associated with sealing by up to 90%. The software is open sourced under a permissive license allowing it to be adopted by the 3,500+ storage providers systems spanning 44+ countries in the Filecoin ecosystem and will support the growth of the Filecoin Network beyond its existing 13 exabytes of capacity, making it significantly easier for users to become Filecoin Storage Providers and onboard data to the network. These network optimizations push forward decentralized storage technologies, advancing the industry and enabling further adoption by enterprises.
Commenting on the launch, Daniel Leon, Decentralized Storage Alliance Lead at Protocol Labs said: “Decentralized storage offers unparalleled data sovereignty and control, surpassing traditional file storage methods. Now, with the introduction of Golden Gate, it not only maintains its advantages, but becomes an even more compelling alternative to centralized storage. Decentralized storage is already 121 times cheaper on average compared to centralized storage and Golden Gate takes decentralized storage cost-effectiveness to new heights, reinforcing its position as the clear choice for enterprises seeking long-term data availability and immutability.”
Golden Gate upgrade combined with the recent launch of the Filecoin Virtual Machine, enable network participants to benefit from decreased compute costs while experiencing increased compute power.
The release is available immediately, so network participants can explore and start testing the new software starting today. Alongside the launch of Golden Gate, the DSA is releasing optimized hardware reference configurations that will enable Storage Providers and service providers interested in the full suite of optimizations to start planning on establishing optimized hardware configurations for this new optimized software.
The impact on Storage Providers will vary based on individual hardware and setups; nevertheless, the entire ecosystem can anticipate reduced costs and increased performance with 75-85% increased throughput to PC2 and C2. Furthermore, Storage Providers will benefit from a noticeable reduction in operational costs as a single server can now efficiently handle all sealing tasks, achieving a remarkable 6x+ higher throughput.
Upcoming releases will build on the functionality of this preliminary release, making it easier for the ecosystem to realize the benefits of the optimizations. Open source orchestration software and DSA reference architectures will make it easier to use the new software off-the-shelf, hardware upgrade instructions will provide guidance on how to update current hardware configurations, and PC2 and C2 optimizations will be integrated directly into Lotus in Q3.
Kelly Olson, Co-Founder of Supranational, said, “Improving the performance of the cryptographic operations in Filecoin’s proof-of-replication and zero knowledge proofs is key to enabling new use cases and scaling the network. By dramatically lowering the costs associated with this cryptography, decentralized storage is able to better compete with centralized offerings.”
To explore and test this early release, visit the DSA website: https://dsalliance.io/
