Introducing Cloud Nodes + Web Bridge for Holochain Applications

April 7, 2025

We are proud to announce the delivery of our first set of products delivered on Holo’s new Allograph network in the first quarter of 2025:  Cloud Nodes and Web Bridge for Holochain Applications.

What are Cloud Nodes exactly? They’re full arc nodes (i.e. holding all data vs. only a portion) that are always online and running your Holochain application’s distributed hash table (DHT). Holo takes care of your Holochain deployment configuration pipelines while you choose the geographic location of each node, and the Holochain conductor version.

What is the Holo Web Bridge? It’s a service that makes it easy to access and seamlessly integrate Holochain application data into traditional web use cases. This bridge technology fundamentally extends the reach of Holochain's DHT data by making it accessible through standard HTTP GET Requests, creating powerful new possibilities for Holochain content delivery and data accessibility.

With the use of Cloud Nodes and Web Bridge, Holo customers can now:

1. Enable asynchronous interaction between online nodes

2. Support network scaling in conjunction with zero-arc nodes

3. Ensure data availability

4. Reference Holochain data from NFTs

5. Render content to a web page

6. Access DHT data from mobile apps / IOT devices that don't run Holochain

7. Improve the number and/or diversity of validators to the network

Let's unpack each of the above use cases for Cloud Nodes and Web Bridge taking into account real-world examples.

1. Enable asynchronous interaction between online nodes

• Example: Consider a community forum application. Some users might only access the forum sporadically. If a user posts a message while another user is offline, the Cloud Nodes will store the message. When the offline user comes back online, their node can synchronize with the Cloud Nodes and retrieve the new message, ensuring they see all updates even if they weren't online when the message was posted.

2. Support network scaling in conjunction with low- or zero-arc nodes

• Example: A social media application experiences a surge in user activity during a popular event. Cloud Nodes can handle the increased load of data storage and validation, enabling client nodes to reduce their arc sizes (storing and validating less of the data) to minimize compute footprint, especially for mobile apps. The Cloud Nodes ensure consistent data availability and integrity as the network scales.

3. Ensure data availability

• Example: A decentralized marketplace application needs to ensure that product listings and transaction records are always accessible. Cloud Nodes provide a stable and always-online infrastructure, guaranteeing that users can access and interact with the marketplace even if their local nodes are temporarily offline. This is critical for maintaining trust and reliability in the marketplace.

4. Reference Holochain data from NFTs

• Example: Consider a platform for digital art ownership using NFTs. Instead of storing the actual art file directly on a potentially expensive blockchain, the NFT can contain a link or pointer to the artwork's immutable data stored within a Holochain hApp. When someone owns the NFT, they can resolve this link, made through a standard HTTP GET Request, which directs them to the specific entry within the Holochain DHT where the artwork's information (metadata, and potentially even a secure link to the file) resides. This approach leverages the security and ownership features of NFTs while benefiting from Holochain's efficient and scalable data storage capabilities. The NFT acts as a key, unlocking access to the data managed by the Holochain application.

5. Render content to a web page

• Example: Imagine a decentralized blogging platform built on Holochain. When a user creates and publishes a blog post within the hApp, this content is stored immutably in the Holochain DHT. To make this content accessible via the standard web, we can use the Holo Web Bridge. When a visitor navigates to the blog's web address, the Web Bridge can query the Holochain network for the latest or specific blog posts. The retrieved data is then served to the user's browser, displaying the content that originated and is secured within the decentralized Holochain network.

6. Access DHT data from mobile apps / IOT devices that don't run Holochain

• Example: Picture a smart agriculture system where various IoT sensors poll data about soil conditions, temperature, and humidity that is collected and securely written to a Holochain hApp. These sensors, being resource-constrained, would not need to run a full Holochain node, but instead would poll and react to the DHT information, allowing farmers to manage their fields in an automated, real-time way, even though their mobile devices and the IoT sensors themselves are not directly participating in the Holochain network as full nodes.

7. Improve the number and/or diversity of validators to the network

• Example: In a supply chain tracking application, Cloud Nodes can act as validators to verify the authenticity of data entries (e.g., timestamps, location data). By deploying Cloud Nodes in various geographies with different network conditions, the application ensures a diverse and robust validation process, reducing the risk of collusion and/or single points of failure. This provides resilience to bad actors attacking a single node or having nodes managed by a single person or company.

Cloud Nodes are an exciting step forward for the Holo team because they mark the beginning of containerized workloads on peer-to-peer nodes (HoloPorts). The ability to manage containerized workloads distributed across multiple geographies opens up the door for many new opportunities - for Holochain application developers, non-Holochain application developers, and the HoloPort owners (hosters) running the workloads on their machines. In more concrete terms, the overall architecture is proving to be blazing fast when compared with the performance of our previous Legacy product offering. Holo customer, Humm, now enjoys a 5x improvement in their page load times as compared with using our Legacy hosting network after updating their hApp to use Web Bridge. In the graphic below, the left side shows page load times with the exact same hApp, Humm Hive, using Legacy, and on the right, using Holo Web Bridge.

"We’re excited at HummHive about the SEO and web crawling ability that Allograph enables; this unlocks a pathway for creators to become discoverable in a decentralised hosting world.”

- Nick Haslem, Founder of HummHive

“Curious about how Cloud Nodes or Web Bridge might fit into your Holochain project? Let’s figure it out together. Drop us a line at info@holo.host and we’ll explore what’s possible.