Recently the Livepeer explorer got a small improvement - we added a Missed Reward Calls column in the transcoders view.
This feature might feel trivial, but it marks a technological leap that was simply impossible without the awesome technologies created by the graph team.
Since the Livepeer explorer is a dApp with NO backend server, all of the data is loaded directly from the Ethereum blockchain. The Ethereum blockchain does NOT support complex data querying. As a result, each page load would hit the Infura servers over 30 times (1 req per transcoder plus other data like the current round). When we thought about adding Missed Reward Calls, we simply couldn’t bring ourselves to build it - because it would increase the number of requests per page load from 30 to over 600! While we use Graphql to hide this complexity from the developer, the infrastructure inefficiency is clear. This type of architecture SIMPLY DOES NOT SCALE.
We got to know the graph team in Sep this year, and from our first conversation, it was clear that their product would be a solution for our problem. The graph node creates a decentralized data caching layer that supports graphql out-of-the-box, and makes data syncing a breeze. We have been impressed with how quickly they are progressing, and look forward to using this great technology in more products!