Author: 0xe400a85a6169bd8be439bb0dc9eac81f19f26843
Update Status: On Time
Project Health: 
On Track
Introduction
How we doin Decentraland Community? Howie Doin here with our monthly update on the Atlas Analytics grant project! We’re coming up on the end of the grant process so today we’ll be talking about the future of Atlas Analytics.
As always, don’t forget to check out the new features at https://data-dapp-dev.atlascorp.io, or view the code at atlas-analytics-os · GitLab!
Highlights
This month we’ve been having a lot of discussions on the future of the Atlas Analytics platform. The purpose of this grant was to open source the code, which we have done, such that anyone that wants to run the platform can continue to do so independent of Atlas Corp and the current hosted deployment. To our knowledge, we’re still the only ones that are running or hosting the code linked above, providing the service paid for by the DAO to folks in Decentraland that want to use the platform.
As per the agreement, we agreed to host the platform for one year - which commenced in December 2023 after the DAO Grant was passed. We will continue to host the infrastructure into January 2025. Beyond that, the community, the new DAO leadership, and/or the Foundation needs to weigh in as to whether Atlas Corp should continue to host the service. Anyone running the same code we have hosted will likely have similar hosting costs. If the decision is that the community desires that the service should continue to operate, then perhaps we put this to a bid and tendering vote. As the code is now open source, maybe someone else believes they can reliably provide a similar or better service for less cost, which can be weighed against our experience of running and operating the same code.
To our understanding, the Decentraland DAO is undergoing changes. There will no longer be a system of DAO grants which removes the ability for us to request further funds to operate the platform. One option would be to have the new DAO structure fund (or operate!) the service if they deem it an important part of the DAO portfolio. While the Foundation might also be interested in such a service, we are aware that they operate their own independent analytics service via the Foundation client and therefore would probably not be interested in a second, redundant offering other than the value it provides to builders (e.g. custom analytics that builders can view).
Furthermore, it was brought to our attention this week that the Foundation is requesting Atlas Corp to sign a Foundation contract that would outline data confidentiality requirements, and enumerating specific dollar amounts owed to the Foundation in the event of a breach. We find this a bit problematic as signing Foundation paperwork as DAO grantees conflicts with the DAO being independent from the Foundation, blurring the line between the two entities.
If the Foundation, or the DAO, is looking to contract for use of Atlas Analytics beyond January 2025, then we are happy to engage in contract review and negotiations to arrive at a mutually beneficial agreement. If the DAO and the Foundation are not willing or able to subsidize the service, then we will need to shut down the hosted service until demand, or funding, returns.
Blockers
As mentioned in the previous update, installing our Analytics capabilities via NPM seems to have limited scope in what functions can work compared to dropping files in the /src directory as has been done historically. We believed the purpose of migrating to an NPM package would simplify the installation process as well as capture updates as they occur. As we do not currently plan to make updates, and the process of installing via NPM is more cumbersome, we had decided not to continue to pursue this feature.The Grant Support Squad offered a partnership with members of the new DAO protocol squad to investigate this issue. We are working with that team to see if there is a way we can achieve this.
It was also brought to our attention that the DAO Data service, a component of the Atlas Analytics stack that captures data from catalyst nodes (“outside in data”), does not work on the new centralized catalyst server hosted at https://realm-provider-ea.decentraland.org/. This catalyst does not expose this data and therefore this service - the one that currently powers DCL-Metrics - will cease to function as traffic moves to the new node.
Next steps
If anyone is interested in discussing an approach or funding source to keep the platform going in the coming months, please reach out. Otherwise we will spend the coming month planning on the most cost effective way to archive the data for posterity that does not require continuous resource investment to support.