August 2022 Summaries

Hasura Storage, developed by Nhost, addresses the lack of native file uploading and downloading capabilities in Hasura by serving as a supplementary service that works alongside Hasura and Amazon S3. This open-source solution allows users to manage files through Hasura Storage, which acts as the entry point for file operations, while storing the actual files on S3 or compatible services like Minio. File metadata is tracked in the database via Hasura, enabling permissions management through Hasura's system, which allows for detailed control over file access based on application data or file metadata. Over its development, Hasura Storage has evolved through three iterations, initially combining with authentication services in Hasura Backend Plus, then being separated for better scalability and performance, and finally being rewritten in Go for efficiency. Users hosting Hasura Storage with Nhost also benefit from an integrated CDN to enhance storage operations.

Nhost announced several updates in July 2022, including the launch of a new region in Mumbai, India, expanding their service's geographical reach. They are transitioning to provide dedicated Postgres instances for each Nhost project, moving away from the shared environment on AWS RDS, a highly requested feature that allows more control over databases. The Data Editor has been enhanced to support editing and deleting data, improving its usability to match that of popular platforms like Airtable and Excel, with plans for further development. Additionally, they introduced Apple Sign-In, allowing seamless user authentication for Apple App Store apps, and made live demos available for their React and Vue Apollo examples. Users can now edit the JWT secret to integrate external authentication providers, and email notifications are introduced for specific events like deployment failures. Lastly, Nhost has shifted terminology from "app" to "project" and engaged in discussions on product development speed and collaborations with Hasura.