Blockchain-as-a-service allows enterprises to test distributed ledger technology

[AudreyCox]

As enterprises look to deploy distributed ledgers, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) launches blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS), offering a way to test the nascent technology without the cost or risk of deploying it in-house. The BaaS offerings could help companies who do not want to build out new infrastructure or try to find in-house developers, which are in hot demand.

While heavily hyped, blockchain technology, which gained its initial disrepute from bitcoin cryptocurrency – has the potential to offer a new paradigm for the way information is shared; tech companies are rushing to figure out how they can use the distributed ledger technology to save time and admin costs.

HPE, joining the league, recently announced the first product in the HPE Mission Critical Blockchain family. Mission Critical Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is a solution that enables customers to run distributed ledger workloads on the highest availability enterprise platforms.

Mission Critical DLT is a distributed ledger technology that is used to record transactions across a decentralized network of computers and has a wide range of potential applications across industries. According to Gartner, blockchain will generate $176 billion in business value by 2025.

The new offering from HPE is unique in that it offers significant enterprise customers, such as banks, the ability to use the technology on a larger scale than is currently possible with big blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum. For example, Bitcoin transactions can take at least 10 minutes to process, as so-called miners generate a new “block” and record the transfer. Moreover, Ethereum has limited capacity to handle transactions, which means it can buckle under high demand.

Enterprises evaluating blockchain solutions are finding that generic infrastructure and public cloud environments cannot support the requirements they need regarding performance, security, scalability, and resiliency. HPE’s Mission Critical DLT solution offers availability and fault protection for enterprise-grade applications. This solution includes Scalability and SQL integration that cannot be realized with workloads running in a public cloud environment or generic infrastructure.                                                                                  

The Mission Critical DLT solution is a part of HPE’s overall approach to bring the enterprise-grade capability to blockchain workloads. The solution offers HPE Integrity NonStop platforms, which process two out of every three credit card transactions in the world. It was developed in partnership with enterprise software firm R3, integrating the company’s distributed ledger technology with HPE's mission-critical platform. This combination enables customers to execute distributed-ledger workloads in environments that demand 100 percent fault tolerance at mission-critical levels and ensures massive scalability to grow with the business as well as SQL integration with legacy systems.

Raphael Davison, Worldwide Director for Blockchain HPE, said “Enterprises interested in blockchain are realizing that public cloud alone does not always meet their non-functional requirements. As they look to scale, they recognize that, for mission-critical processes, on-premise infrastructure must be part of the mix of traditional IT, private and public cloud that’s needed to meet the requirements of enterprise-grade blockchain workloads.”

HPE plans to offer a flexible charging model, similar to other BaaS offerings, with prices based on the server node, CPU or core. HPE's new blockchain SaaS offering based on Corda, a blockchain platform developed by New-York-based banking consortium R3. R3's Corda is the biggest industrial consortium among banks, insurers, and others in a blockchain environment, according to Martha Bennet, a principal analyst with Forrester Research.

HPE Mission Critical DLT is expected to be commercially available in early 2018. Customers also will be able to purchase access to this solution in a “DLT as a Service” environment for severe trials and production use later in the year.

Audrey Cox
WW OEM Communications & Brand Awareness
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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