Flare has launched its Blockchain Machine Images on Google Cloud Marketplace, a groundbreaking tool that will allow Web3 developers to deploy full blockchain nodes in mere minutes and at low costs. 

How does Blockchain Machine Images work?

Blockchain Machine Images works by simply clicking the deploy button from the Google Cloud  Marketplace listing. This will then spin up and sync a node of your choosing in your own environment within minutes. You can also select the latest image ID and use it in an autoscaling group for a more robust infrastructure set-up. 

How will this benefit developers?

Flare’s Blockchain Machine Images is a node-as-a-service solution, which allows you to spin up and sync a dedicated node which will be ready within minutes, it supports more than 20 top blockchain networks, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, and Avalanche. The normal process of deploying and syncing full blockchain nodes can be both time-intensive and costly, often needing a dedicated infrastructure team to manage. Through the Google Cloud Marketplace, this process is simplified considerably. Now, with the click of a button, nodes can be deployed and updated, and used to power dapps, platforms, and data streams. 

How will this benefit businesses?

As previously mentioned, node deployment and management can require a lot of time and resources. The extensive infrastructure needed can rack up costs for businesses. With Blockchain Machine Images, businesses now have a cost-effective solution that will let them run nodes, freeing them up to allocate their personnel and financial resources more effectively. For example, other leading blockchain node-as-a-service providers are charging up to $2000 per month. In contrast, the new service lets users run dedicated Flare nodes for around $300 per month. It will also allow companies to do so without much maintenance of the infrastructure or relying on external services.

Enterprises can now more easily initiate blockchain development and integrate blockchain data into their existing systems without requiring costly in-house infrastructure or significant technical expertise. 

What are the larger implications?

Flare’s Blockchain Machine Images on Google Cloud Marketplace broadens the scope of the Flare blockchain’s cloud-based services. Prior to the integration, Flare provided an API Portal through Google Cloud, giving developers easy access to perform onchain transactions and view real-time data from other major blockchains. With the integration, developers now have access to a more comprehensive solution that offers a complete node-as-a-service solution with access to their own blockchain node to use as they see fit. Which means they can have unlimited RPC calls, workloads and data indexing, therefore making Blockchain Machine Images an invaluable resource for projects requiring unrestricted access to blockchain data or projects which require the safety of controlling and maintaining their own node in their own environment. 

Within the context of the Flare ecosystem, Flare’s VP of Engineering, Josh Edwards, states that this will be especially beneficial to Flare’s Attestation Providers. Attestation Providers are independent entities on Flare responsible for securely retrieving data from external blockchains, such as Bitcoin or Ripple. They play a crucial role in validating and transmitting data to the Flare blockchain. 

Currently, Blockchain Machine Images supports more than 20 blockchain networks. Flare has plans underway to scale up to include more top blockchains down the line. The integration will help streamline operations within the Flare ecosystem and improve the overall scalability and reliability of Flare’s offerings.

Launch Blockchain Machine Images today: https://dev.flare.network/run-node/gcp-marketplace-nodes/