BUDDY: BRINGING AUTOMATED DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES TO THE BLOCKCHAIN

1.0 INTRODUCTION: DEVELOPMENT AS WE KNOW IT
As organisations scale rapidly, the need to find ways to work efficiently becomes paramount. Organisations in their formative stages are not exempted either, because efficient processes ensure that less energy is spent achieving set goals, and also ensuring that the team stays on schedule and focus on their core objectives.
Automation of application development, testing and deploying is a headache many organisations/teams will be glad to get off their hands, but viable solutions remain a big problem.

An industry that is estimated to grow to $345B in 2022needs revolutionary solutions that will cater to ever increasing needs of its stakeholders.

2.0 PROBLEM: PAIN FACED BY TEAMS/ORGANSATIONS
Some problems enterprises face with most solutions are working with obsolete tools, having barriers that limit adoption of innovative tools due to complexity or not knowing which to use, out of those available, and then scalability issues for bigger teams.

Some organisations thousands of instances on a daily basis, and these instances need resources. Allocating vast resources to these processes costs money and takes a lot of time that could be channeled to its primary goal.

3.0 BUDDY: A FEASIBLE ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM
Buddy ensures that the process of developing applications and deploying them is seamless, reducing developments team workload, and ensuring that they spend less time on these, seeing these processes are automatically carried out by Buddy.

Working with Buddy also ensures that teams get to have better working processes and enjoy automated pipeline creation, distributed BaaS, automation grid, access to DevOps marketplace, BlockchainOps and Sandboxes.

These ensure that the development and deployment process is positively impacted on, ensuring that life is made easier for everyone.

Most of these will be looked out in depth in a bit.

4.0 WHAT MAKES BUDDY STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD
Buddy employs the use of a number of innovative solutions to make life easier and deliver a better return on investment.

4.1 THE DEVOPS MARKETPLACE
More than 80 automation processes have been developed by Buddy, to ensure that development and deployment of software is a walk in the park. They are sorted into pipelines, and ensure that applications can be deployed in a few clicks.

The marketplace is also open to third party developers to create solutions that could be helpful to teams/organisations in general, and through this, these developers are able to monetise their efforts, and are rewarded via BUD tokens.

To understand this better, think about applications on Windows Apps (windows), Google Play Store (android) or App Store (iOS). Apart from apps created by these companies, there are apps created by independent individuals, offering solutions which they get financial rewards in return. These apps are usually free or paid.
Buddy will also ensure that developers allow the use of their apps for open source projects(these are usually not created for profit, but rather to solve a problem, without any strings attached). This will ensure that the blockchain ecosystem will continue to grow.

Opening up the Automation Marketplace to third parties will ensure that Buddy will grow exponentially. If resources were created by the Buddy team alone, growth will be slow, might stagnate and they might not be able to meet the needs of all users. This will lead to Buddy losing users, rather than growing.

Opening up the marketplace will ensure that multiple solutions of the highest quality are available. It will also ensure that third party developers stick around, seeing they are getting rewarded for their efforts. The marketplace ensures that everyone- Buddy, developers, users, the blockchain benefit, and are the better for it.

4.2 PRIVATE AUTOMATION GRID
This involves the creation of Buddy instances that make use of auto-discovery and can replicate functions, to create High Availability and auto-scalable infrastructure for development and deployment automation.
Users also have the option to make use of their own private resources, private clouds or third party solutions such as AWS to run Buddy Instances.

This is very important to businesses, because security concerns are big talking points, and not relying on others with regards to scalability and uptime is critical. In other words, having full control is a primary concern, thus private networks are preferred by organisations.

Buddy has the ability to auto-scale; starting from the first two instances, they create master-master replication to create a High Availability system. Subsequent instances will be used in running more pipelines in parallel.

Depending on the load, Buddy also has the ability to remove redundant instances on-the-go, and integrations with IaaS providers such as IBM Cloud, or GRIDS provided by Buddy/Buddy partners can be used for this.

4.3 SHARED AUTOMATION GRID
Shared automated grids ensure that automation tasks that are resources intensive can have additional support from a network of users, who stretch the capabilities of the ecosystem.
In cases where security isn’t paramount, these are especially helpful. Buddy ensures that these users meet specific requirements, before they are able to be a part of the network. Such teams can then have access to these additional resources, by trading in BUD tokens. The essence of these storage is to perform automated tasks, save the results, and have them sent to the requester. Once the task is completed, the resource is released.

Decentralised networks can be used massively to the benefit of organisations/teams. Such an instance is using a private GRID of Buddy instances to build an application, and run it in a Sandbox for more tests, and then hundreds of Buddy instances from the Shared GRID can run test against it. Rather than having results in hours, they could be gotten in minutes.


5.0 THE BUDDY ADVANTAGE (ESPECIALLY WHEN COMPARED TO SUPERCOMPUTERS)

5.1 AUTOMATION BY DESIGN
Tasks on Buddy are executed automatically, and they do not require loads of steps, and additional equipment to deploy pipelines. Of the thousands of instances being currently run on Buddy by the hour, none of them require user input, to ensure that these take place.
On the other hand, supercomputers require a lot of resources to complete single tasks.

5.2 CONTROL
Users can make use of Private Automation GRIDS to ensure that they are in full control of their data/resources, unlike supercomputers, where there are no foolproof measures to ensure integrity is maintained, and Intellectual Property rights are not infringed.

5.3 FIXED AND LOCAL RESOURCES
Supercomputers require a lot of resources(processing power and storage space) to handle automated tasks. In many instances, when they can’t get enough resources to function, the process initiated gets terminated.

5.4 USER EXPERIENCE
Buddy ensures that its user interface is easy on the eyes, and users are able to navigate through the ecosystem with ease.
Supercomputers on the other hand are complicated, and require creation of wrappers, to accommodate specific workflows.

5.5 NO OVERHEAD AND NO FEES
Seeing the Private Automation GRID is owned in its entirety by the user, there will be no latency or additional fees. Tasks are also executed instantly. Reverse is the case with supercomputers. With Shared Automation GRID, P2P and Buddy are used for peer discovery, while the main communication remains direct.

5.6 CHALLENGES
Not all projects are feasible using supercomputers, because there are still a lot of technicalities that need to be resolved. The Shared Automation GRID uses existing technologies, and also solves existing problems, rather than create new ones.
Shared Automation GRIDS aren’t in competition with supercomputers. Third parties are welcome on the DevOps marketplace to create solutions that harness the power/resources of supercomputers.

6.0 BUDDY FOR DAPPS
Creating applications for the blockchain is still complicated, and a lot still needs to be understood about the blockchain itself, and its intricacies. Smart contracts development can be complicated, even for the most experienced developers. Just one bug can lead to vulnerabilities and the system being exploited. Buddy wants to ensure that tasks and the process in its entirety is handled more efficiently and effectively.

A lack of developer tools will hinder expected growth, development will be slower, and needs of users will not be met.
When such working tools are made available, developers will be able to view the possibilities of what can be created more clearly, they will also be able to compare with centralised cases, and it will show that the blockchain is serous about development, and it’s a cause worth working on and also focusing on fully.

6.1 BLOCKCHAINOPS
Using Buddy, developers for the blockchain can also automate processes-from initiation, compilation, running tests and all through to deployment. Tests ensure that their applications are free of bugs that could be exploited, seeing humans are prone to errors.
The process is easy, and voids the process of errors or complicated processes.

6.2 DAppOS
dAppOS are ready to use development environments. They can be applied in different ways, ranging from testing to collaboration and feedback. It can also be used as a standalone environment for development. DApps such as Sandbox can be extended by the use of services, such as Mongo and MySQL.
It has the ability to be integrated with Buddy's cloud, ensuring that remote teams development is not hampered.
They can also be used as training tools for smart contracts and DApps.
Template universe is a marketplace for DApps and Sandbox templates, where users can get third party solutions.

6.3 DISTRIBUTED BAAS (BLOCKCHAIN-AS-A-SERVICE)
Developers are given the freedom they need to create just about any solution they wish to. Using Buddy, they can create new blockchains by the click of a button. Unlimited blockchain nodes with multi/cross-chain support can also be created.
It has support for Ethereum, HyperLedger, Multichain, Ripple and NEM.

7.0 BUD: THE FUEL OF THE ECOSYSTEM

BUD is an ERC20 token used in effecting developer’s rewards for their efforts, and also enables teams to purchase/rent resources.
A maximum of 670,000,000 BUD tokens will be generated, and no new tokens will be created.
Rate: 1 BUD=0.0002 ETH


8.0 USE CASES

• Smart contracts creation: Solcurity is a company focused on writing smart contracts.
  After the team was satisfied with the end result achieved, they were ready to deploy. However, they had just come in contact with Buddy, and decided to have a go at it. On running automated tests, they discovered some bugs due to human error, and vulnerabilities that could have been exploited. Thanks to Buddy, these were identified before deployment, and changes were effected.

The diagram below shows some use cases and applications.

9.0 HOW ATTRACTING MORE DEVELOPERS WILL TO DECETRALISED DEVELOPMENT WILL ENSURE GROWTH
Attracting more developers over to blockchain development will ensure that more resources will be available for projects, especially open source projects which guarantees rapid growth.
With more hands on deck, development will be achieved faster. More developers in the ecosystem will lead to more money moving around, and also opening the door for more jobs (developers, sales, marketing and communications personnel), as organisations scale up.

Many blockchain applications have terrible user interfaces, and users also have bad experiences using them. Having more hands will ensure that these can be improved on, with fresh ideas being brought in.

In time, when blockchain goes mainstream, offchain technologies will need to merge seamlessly with blockchain tech. Having such developers onboard, who have experience on both sides, will assist in merging both, effortlessly.

Blockchain technologies are also growing at an alarming rate, meaning extra hands are needed more than ever.

10.0 SUMMARY
Being developers themselves(Buddy) ensures that they understand the users pain, and the problems organisations face, during development and deployment.

Buddy is also already solving real world problems, and playing an active role in the growth of the decentralised industry, also not forgetting opening up opportunities for open source development.

Clearly, this team knows what they are doing, and are on a mission to ensure that development on the blockchain is a walk in the park for everyone.

If you ever needed a friend, Buddy is that buddy (pun intended) that ensures you are never alone.

TEAM

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