We’ve often talked about the big dream - the idea of totally utopian sovereign data across all devices, for every individual and every organization, in every network globally.

Our Open Web tech means no project leader needs to ever resort to using centralized custody of their valuable data. Our Open Web tech guarantees user privacy is protected transparently and by default. Our Open Web tech ensures no third party data breach means the end of your project. And our Open Web tech is open to everyone. 

In a data-driven world, Source Network ensures you’re the one steering, whether you’re a tiny team launching a niche utility on a pre-existing network using specific data, or a giant conglomerate rolling out edge devices to every corner of the planet. The true potential future of edge computing, the bottlenecks it overcomes, and the utility it delivers can’t happen without Source Network.

Add and Expand, Not Replace

It’s important, though, that we don't let the big dreams cloud the little victories, and stop us from establishing important headways in returning data to the people. DefraDB’s interoperable modularity means it can integrate with any part of a developer’s traditional stack. 

Our tools are not about total replacement of what already exists (yet), but about integrating proper sovereign data management into already existing data architectures and allowing developers to rescue, piece by piece, their application, users, and company data from the clutches of third parties, that by design, do not have their best interests at heart. 

DefraDB’s functionality co-exists with traditional data architectures and allows the management of that data to exist in a fully sovereign fashion.  LensVM transforms data bi-directionally so that no matter what your data structure looks like now, it can operate seamlessly with DefraDB. SourceHub acts as a trust anchor and auditor for your data transforming your stack into a decentralized fortress protecting anyone who tries to tamper with it, while for those keen on managing secrets, Orbis enables secure sharing of application and user secrets.

All four of our tools are not meant to be strictly totalizing solutions that elbow current methods out of the way, however, but adaptable modular pieces to help a developer and their project make that final step from a dinosaur pledged to ultimate extinction to a modern sovereign member of the data economy.

Integrating Source with Your Existing Stack 

We look at security like a Swiss Army Knife, where developers and builders choose the right security that matches their data needs, rather than demanding they fully construct their Open Web stack from day one. Here are key ways DefraDB can be used alongside existing environments to bring us closer to utopia.

• Reliable Backup: DefraDB could act as a simple backup to your current stack, synchronizing critical data across a set of edge devices or local servers in case of catastrophe. DefraDB’s modularity means that it is capable of not only storing and replicating specific device data fields, say how many requests that device has received, or who owns the device. That way, you can begin decentralizing high value vital fields while you explore wider integration with Source Network’s tools without overhauling existing infrastructure.

• Global Synchronization: Real-time data synchronization across multiple geographic locations can be tough, especially when different devices are operating using different data schema or in differing environments. For applications like autonomous vehicles  or medical data held by different institutions that is a challenge. LensVM allows for easy data transformation between cloud-native and edge devices without having to rework their database schema, APIs, or building expensive bespoke funnels. 

• Privacy-Conscious Data Analytics: A project - say a healthcare app - may want to collect sensitive user data, but is focused on consumer privacy. DefraDB can make sure the data they collect never needs to leave the device on which it's being collected, and the developer can use edge-based analytic pipelines running locally on other nearby devices or servers. DefraDB can be used solely with their data collection layer, and limit data leakage to centralized entities to safeguard privacy.

Critical Tools for Edge Computing’s Future

Our frontier tech continues to push new boundaries. The time for their adoption will come when edge compute networks become the norm now and over the coming years. You can’t take advantage of the potential edge computing is capable of without the sovereign data management tools that Source Network has built. 

What’s the point of having an edge compute network or IoT network if every single process o needs to go back to a central server on the other side of the world to check the database for permission or necessary info before coming back to execute said process? 

All throughput gains are lost, the latency annihilating any sense of local utility, the message relayed through all sorts of rent-seeking, yet vulnerable, entities. Edge computing may be a nascent IT sector, but the point needs to be made that without proper sovereign, modular and interoperable data management, then it's fundamentally a useless one. 

That does not mean developers need to abandon AWS, garrote Google and abstain from Azure - but it does mean that for their local edge networks to thrive they at least need to implement alternative data management processes alongside them - otherwise their device fleets are just distant dumb beacons capable only of nodded and shaking heads, and not be instrumental in performing local utilities.

The Path of Many Little Steps

The path to the total opening of the world’s internet utilities can’t happen overnight. We’re developers, we know that. You can’t rip up what is sometimes decades of work in order to achieve marginal democratization - we know that too. What you can do is induct Source Network’s tools alongside your existing stack so that the core functionality of distributed data management is inherent in your application and means that when the wholesale adoption of edge computing networks takes hold and more and more internet utilities use these networks to function, your project is radically scalable. We encourage all those keen on building an open internet to dabble with local-first and distributed software, as it's through that process the ultimate victory is achieved. Come see how your Source Network can expand your stack's functionality and pave the way to total sovereign data management.