It’s not just for Bitcoins. Everyone’s trying to understand the blockchain and some are already using it. But is the database technology really ready for enterprise?
In recent months various companies representing the oil and gas, finance, and software industries have formed the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance , dedicated to creating an enterprise-grade blockchain using a blockchain app platform called Ethereum. It boasts companies like Microsoft, BP, Intel, and JP Morgan among its ranks.
But for all the excitement building around it, the blockchain has yet to answer one crucial question: Is it really ready for enterprise?
So what is blockchain exactly? In short, it’s a means of creating distributed databases.
Whenever that information is transferred it needs to be verified to make sure it isn’t fake or has been tampered with. In a typical network this is handled by a central database, much in the way that a bank handles money.
Blockchain distributes this entire process. Rather than one or a few central servers, blockchain utilizes a network of what could be thousands of computers, all sharing a system-wide “ledger” that verifies the transaction across the entire large-scale network. Each computer holds bundles of information (blocks) that are chained together using cryptography to form the ledger.
To trick the system you’d have to trick every single machine that holds a copy of the ledger, (which would be an extremely difficult task)
The advantages of blockchain for enterprise applications is that it offers: decentralization, since no one entity holds ownership of the data; both public openness and pseudo-anonymity simultaneously; the ability to create token currencies that can be used to track ownership of data (i.e. who owns what piece of information along a supply chain); and, arguably most attractive, the ability to create smart contracts.
What smart contacts allow is an ability to embed logic into a blockchain for easier process automation. In an IoT context smart contracts can be used to script automated transactions between different connected systems, but in a highly secured way. Information transacted to one device could automatically trigger transactions in other devices, and so on. Imagine being able to automatically and securely pay a supplier as a product moves along the manufacturing process – all without a centralized IT infrastructure.
There are already some emerging use cases in the enterprise space.
Electronic Arts tech director thinks tech-agnostic developers can build better networks than slave-to-vendor NetAdmins
Fire your network administrators, hire developers instead, and stop expecting networking equipment vendors to provide anything more valuable than free lunches.
That’s the advice from games-maker Electronic Arts director of technical engagement Peyton Koran, who delivered a talk titled “The Impacts of Cloud Computing and Open Source on the Networking Industry” at the Future:Net conference that ran alongside last week’s VMworld 2017.
Peyton’s argument suggests that software development is now many organisations’ core competency, but that networking vendors require competency running their proprietary products. That in turn creates a need for procurement competency and licensing competency, even though they’re not the things that matter to a business. Buying in to proprietary networks also, he said, means users buy into a vendor’s approach to running networks, making the adoption of other technologies harder to contemplate or execute.
What does matter is new features that improve a network, but Koran said vendors only build those when a critical mass of clients request them. Using standards processes can create useful tech, he said, but only if you’re willing to wait years. Which nobody can. Rolling your own isn’t viable unless you operate at scale to compare with Facebook or Google.
Koran said most organisations are therefore stuck in a cycle whereby network vendors quote scarily high prices for equipment, then wheel in a senior sales person to placate and/or soothe shocked customers.
“Basically this ecosystem is great for steaks,” Koran told the conference to laughter an applause. “Most companies are realising this is not an ecosystem they want to be a part of any more.” They are instead looking for interoperable networks and are willing to pay more to get them as services running in the cloud.
The cloud’s a game-changer, he believes, because it doesn’t just replace appliances as a source of networking services, it also replaces the supposed secret sauce that networking vendors bake into ASICs and other closed hardware.
Koran believes the way forward is therefore to use a competency many organisations possess – running generic servers – and have software developers run them as part of a development effort that sees organisations build their own networking stacks, perhaps using community-contributed open-source code that shares useful functionality.
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2 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is the Blockchain Prepared for Enterprise?
https://www.designnews.com/iot/blockchain-prepared-enterprise/25912681256416?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20170315
It’s not just for Bitcoins. Everyone’s trying to understand the blockchain and some are already using it. But is the database technology really ready for enterprise?
In recent months various companies representing the oil and gas, finance, and software industries have formed the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance , dedicated to creating an enterprise-grade blockchain using a blockchain app platform called Ethereum. It boasts companies like Microsoft, BP, Intel, and JP Morgan among its ranks.
But for all the excitement building around it, the blockchain has yet to answer one crucial question: Is it really ready for enterprise?
So what is blockchain exactly? In short, it’s a means of creating distributed databases.
Whenever that information is transferred it needs to be verified to make sure it isn’t fake or has been tampered with. In a typical network this is handled by a central database, much in the way that a bank handles money.
Blockchain distributes this entire process. Rather than one or a few central servers, blockchain utilizes a network of what could be thousands of computers, all sharing a system-wide “ledger” that verifies the transaction across the entire large-scale network. Each computer holds bundles of information (blocks) that are chained together using cryptography to form the ledger.
To trick the system you’d have to trick every single machine that holds a copy of the ledger, (which would be an extremely difficult task)
The advantages of blockchain for enterprise applications is that it offers: decentralization, since no one entity holds ownership of the data; both public openness and pseudo-anonymity simultaneously; the ability to create token currencies that can be used to track ownership of data (i.e. who owns what piece of information along a supply chain); and, arguably most attractive, the ability to create smart contracts.
What smart contacts allow is an ability to embed logic into a blockchain for easier process automation. In an IoT context smart contracts can be used to script automated transactions between different connected systems, but in a highly secured way. Information transacted to one device could automatically trigger transactions in other devices, and so on. Imagine being able to automatically and securely pay a supplier as a product moves along the manufacturing process – all without a centralized IT infrastructure.
There are already some emerging use cases in the enterprise space.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Networking vendors are good for free lunches, hopeless for networks
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/05/networking_vendors_are_good_for_free_lunches_hopeless_for_networks/https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/05/networking_vendors_are_good_for_free_lunches_hopeless_for_networks/
Electronic Arts tech director thinks tech-agnostic developers can build better networks than slave-to-vendor NetAdmins
Fire your network administrators, hire developers instead, and stop expecting networking equipment vendors to provide anything more valuable than free lunches.
That’s the advice from games-maker Electronic Arts director of technical engagement Peyton Koran, who delivered a talk titled “The Impacts of Cloud Computing and Open Source on the Networking Industry” at the Future:Net conference that ran alongside last week’s VMworld 2017.
Peyton’s argument suggests that software development is now many organisations’ core competency, but that networking vendors require competency running their proprietary products. That in turn creates a need for procurement competency and licensing competency, even though they’re not the things that matter to a business. Buying in to proprietary networks also, he said, means users buy into a vendor’s approach to running networks, making the adoption of other technologies harder to contemplate or execute.
What does matter is new features that improve a network, but Koran said vendors only build those when a critical mass of clients request them. Using standards processes can create useful tech, he said, but only if you’re willing to wait years. Which nobody can. Rolling your own isn’t viable unless you operate at scale to compare with Facebook or Google.
Koran said most organisations are therefore stuck in a cycle whereby network vendors quote scarily high prices for equipment, then wheel in a senior sales person to placate and/or soothe shocked customers.
“Basically this ecosystem is great for steaks,” Koran told the conference to laughter an applause. “Most companies are realising this is not an ecosystem they want to be a part of any more.” They are instead looking for interoperable networks and are willing to pay more to get them as services running in the cloud.
The cloud’s a game-changer, he believes, because it doesn’t just replace appliances as a source of networking services, it also replaces the supposed secret sauce that networking vendors bake into ASICs and other closed hardware.
Koran believes the way forward is therefore to use a competency many organisations possess – running generic servers – and have software developers run them as part of a development effort that sees organisations build their own networking stacks, perhaps using community-contributed open-source code that shares useful functionality.