# Validators Validators are node operators responsible for securing the network. They fulfill the following responsibilities: 1. Serves as the API gateway of the network: manages the full life cycle of data & intelligence requests to the Hemera Network 2. Validates network responses: validate the responses provided by indexer and inference nodes 3. Validates the availabilities of indexers and inference nodes: validators maintain a lookup table called the "Address-Name-Service" (ANS) for locating the accounts and indexers who hold the accounts data. As such, validators periodically check and verify the availability of the indexed data. See Figure below

Figure Validator nodes (API Gateway nodes) hosting Address-Name-Service (ANS), a distributed lookup table maintained to locate the respective indexer nodes holding states for individual account addresses. The key information of ANS is the mapping of account addresses to indexer nodes’ network details. The API gateway nodes can also act as validator nodes to validate the indexer nodes and create Proof-of-Indexing when needed.

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