Customer Profile
Gateway.fm is a diverse and passionate, remote-first team spread across three continents. Together, the team has 100+ years of industry experience in blockchain, FinTech, telecom, and InfoSec. The company has built extensive blockchain partnerships and is dedicated to fostering the developer community with its deep crypto expertise and commercial experience.
The Challenge
Gateway.fm has built a cloud-based, multi-chain, geographically-distributed enterprise infrastructure that provides access to users’ applications to blockchain nodes via RPC API. The majority of the company’s clients are decentralized exchanges, crypto wallets, DAOs, and other blockchain enterprises. Gateway.fm’s goal is to empower Web3 DApps using the most powerful suite of blockchain development features on the market.
Gateway.fm aims to protect the decentralized nature of the blockchains to Layer-1s. Thus, they were looking to find a private cloud solution to ensure the decentralization, scalability, and reliability blockchain providers require. Another challenge Gateway.fm was looking to overcome was to find cloud services that can offer all the benefits of a private cloud such as optimum security and availability, while also providing the option for a global distribution of locations for an affordable price.
One of Gateway.fm’s goals is to attract both blockchain enterprises and big players that are coming from Web 2 to the Web 3 space. As such, they needed a European-based cloud provider that would eliminate any jurisdiction or regulatory problems.
“There are certain things that we were looking for to make sure that we have this capability of not getting entangled with regulations. One of the reasons that we established ourselves in operations in Europe was due to this.” – Cuautemoc Weber, CEO @ Gateway.fm
Furthermore, Gateway.fm had to find a green data center cloud solution, as many of their clients required to be hosted on a cloud powered by renewable energy.
Finally, as some of the other cloud vendors they have been working with did not offer immediate customer support, Gateway.fm needed a cloud partner that provides technical support that responds fast and effectively. The company needed a solution that is straight-forward, smooth, and instantaneous.
The Solution
The Gateway.fm team was familiar with CloudSigma from their previous line of work, as CloudSigma is one of the main infrastructure providers for GÉANT – Europe’s leading collaboration on network and related infrastructure and services for research and education. CloudSigma has the reputation of a reliable and flexible cloud solution which initially attracted Gateway.fm. The next step was to evaluate whether CloudSigma checked all of the requirements essential for a blockchain infrastructure provider.
“First and foremost, we needed a private cloud solution to ensure we can support the centralized nature of blockchains. CloudSigma was the clear partner for us, as it offered a reliable private cloud that can also scale up very quickly, which is crucial for blockchain infrastructure.” Igor Mandrigin, CTO @ Gateway.fm
Besides its reliability, Gateway.fm chose CloudSigma because it is based in Europe. More than that, CloudSigma offers a 100% green cloud solution in Boden, Sweden, thanks to our partnership with Hydro66.
“The fact that CloudSigma provides a Scandinavian, green cloud solution was a really important factor for us. Having a sustainable cloud offering was actually a requirement from one of our biggest clients. Having this capability was a big plus.” – Cuautemoc Weber, CEO @ Gateway.fm
“We see that cost per bit will be one of the bigger differentiators in the future in terms of blockchain expenses. Therefore, we see a considerable advantage in working with a company like CloudSigma in terms of the price per bit that could also differentiate as soon as you scale. It really brings the economics of scale to the picture very fast.” Cuautemoc Weber, CEO @ Gateway.fmAnother advantage that made CloudSigma the preferred cloud provider for Gateway.fm was that it covered all aspects of the company’s requirements while offering maximum cost efficiency.
The Implementation
In terms of the implementation process, Gateway.fm found the process of building their blockchain infrastructure on top of CloudSigma’s infrastructure very smooth.
“The onboarding was straightforward, and we were able to always get instant support. CloudSigma’s technical support is the best – we love the 24/7 support with a chat with human, as we didn’t have to submit a new request and wait for another day to get back from CloudSigma.”Alex Ulyanov, Infrastructure Chief Architect @ Gateway.fm
Gateway.fm is deploying primarily blockchain nodes on CloudSigma’s platform. In addition to the blockchain nodes, Gateway.fm has a smart proxy that gives accessibility in terms of providing an API service back to the end client. Furthermore, the company performs load balancing in terms of distributing some of the traffic for the different blockchains.
“Currently, we support three different Layer-1s inside of CloudSigma, and all of the infrastructure is built around CloudSigma’s backend. This is the deployment for the RPC. We are also doing a secondary service called staking service, which is providing validation or proof of stake, meaning the consensus layer of the blockchain.” – Cuautemoc Weber, CEO @ Gateway.fm
The Impact
Gateway.fm has been CloudSigma’s client for more than a year and so far, they believe they have made the right choice.
“Our experience in working with CloudSigma has been very positive so far. Together, we are successfully collaborating to develop a solution that empowers blockchains. Whenever we need something, there is always someone who can help, give more information, estimations, provide feedback, and keep us in the loop. So far, everything is great.” – Alex Ulyanov, Infrastructure Chief Architect @ Gateway.fm
Most importantly, CloudSigma’s flexible on-demand scalability and granular infrastructure configuration allowed the client to scale their nodes instantly and accommodate different workloads in a very short timeframe.
“With CloudSigma, we can scale our nodes instantly. There is no limitation on size, like with other cloud providers that may take hours or maybe days to create a snapshot. With CloudSigma, it’s really easy. Within seconds, you get a snapshot, you promote it live, and then, voilà, you get a new node that’s five terabytes size. It is also key that CloudSigma’s platform is not overwhelmed with different settings and combinations. You just begin and you get going instantly. So, that’s a really great feature.” - Alex Ulyanov, Infrastructure Chief Architect @ Gateway.fm
Thanks to CloudSigma’s unique Cloud-as-a-Service (CaaS) model, Gateway.fm was able to take advantage of using different data center providers from CloudSigma’s constantly expanding partner network. Gateway.fm has started their deployment in CloudSigma’s location in Sweden, and since then has expanded to four more European locations – Geneva, Zürich, and Frankfurt. Having the same cloud setup, allowed Gateway.fm to have the same approach and to replicate their infrastructure in any CloudSigma location.
“Expanding in different locations is quite easy with CloudSigma. The diversification of locations is very important for us as a blockchain infrastructure provider, since we are aiming for distributed decentralized solutions, which means that we need to be present in different regions. And also, geographical locations will affect the response time for our clients. Thus, we need to be deployed somewhere close to our clients.” – Alex Ulyanov, Infrastructure Chief Architect @ Gateway.fm
The Future
In terms of the future, Gateway.fm has ambitious plans to expand, and become one of the biggest blockchain infrastructure providers. As such, the company has no doubt that CloudSigma’s platform will be their preferred cloud partner.
“We’re planning to be one of the top three infrastructure vendors on the planet for blockchain services. So, we can see that in the coming years, we will need a lot of capacity from CloudSigma.” – Igor Mandrigin, CTO @ Gateway.fm
In terms of further geographical expansion, Gateway.fm is looking into possibly testing some of our locations in Asia, such as Manila, Clark, and Tokyo.
“CloudSigma’s cloud offerings in the Asian market are interesting regions for us to look at in the future. From what we have seen so far, the middle layer of the configuration in your different locations is very similar, and it’s going to be pretty easy for us to continue that expansion in different regions.” -Cuautemoc Weber, CEO @ Gateway.fm
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