How solutions like Kaleido.io can help your blockchain go to production faster, stronger, and safer.
The rise of private chains
If you are considering the use of blockchain for your organization, chances are you have had to decide between public and private chains. The former is like the internet where anyone can connect to any dApp; and the later is like an intranet where you need to be invited to get any access at all.
Public blockchains offer unparalleled security and decentralization and are great for applications such as our food traceability service, live on Ethereum mainnet since 2018. Private blockchains, on the other hand, offer greater data confidentiality features. While solutions like the Baseline Protocol or Starkware want to bring privacy to public blockchains, and off-chain approaches like QED-it exist as well, the truth is that there is no standard for privacy on public blockchains yet.
These challenges combined with the strict confidentiality requirements of any business application means that most enterprise blockchains run on private networks today, just like many enterprise applications still run on intranets.
Blockchain has allowed companies like Komgo to bring 13 banks around the table, build a consortium chain, and digitalize trade finance. Or 22 banks in Thailand to digitalize letter of guarantees. Consortium chains are a prime use-case for private blockchains, where companies can “coopete” on a shared platform where one retains ownership of their data. Something that blockchain powers very efficiently. This is gaining so much traction that companies like Deloitte, and organizations like the World Economic Forum are now issuing consortium best practices and full-blown consortium toolkits.
How to run a consortium?
If you’re building a consortium, you’re probably going to spend a lot of time with your legal counsel, and your CTO. Making smart contracts a reality means talking to your lawyers, and your developers. Especially if you are putting dozens of companies around the table to build a shared infrastructure. Or you might decide to join an existing consortium, in Thailand, you can talk to the Blockchain Community Initiative.
On the technology side, what we provide at atato, you’re going to:
- Build a cross-companies private network
- Roll-out an agreed blockchain software
- Roll-out a wallet infrastructure
- Develop your smart contracts
- Roll-out approved smart contracts
- Build monitoring, and alert infrastructure
- Build application integration services
- Develop applications integrated with your consortium
- Repeat the above every time someone joins your consortium
To quote the Kasikorn Bank Technology Group’s team
“Decentralized deployment is a real chaos.”
And while pioneers struggled to get their consortium off the ground back in 2018, there are now battle-proven, production-ready solutions that offer essentially “blockchain-as-a-service”.
Let the pros run your chain
Today when deploying an application, most people would not think of calling Dell to purchase a new server, and then Cisco to set up your network. You’re more likely to turn to Azure, AWS, or GCP and rent their infrastructure. You’re also very likely to use the myriad of value-added services these cloud providers offer order to run databases, perform backups, enforce permissions and security, etc.
That is essentially the value proposition of companies like Kaleido, the leader in consortium blockchain with clients such as Citibank, Shell, Cargill, T-Mobile, and many others.
On a monthly, pay-as-you-go basis, you’ll have access to an ISO27000 certified, SLA-backed, consortium ready, a full-stack blockchain platform. Oh, and did I mention you can try it out for free?
What you want from such a platform is:
- Consortium management features, to control access to your private chain
- Blockchain deployment features, to create your various environments
- Built-in monitoring, dashboards, blockchain explorers and alerts
- Multiple wallet options, so that your consortium member can choose to sign transactions however best suits them
- Built-in solutions for deployment, events streaming, API gateways, document exchange, off-chain messaging
- An open marketplace, for 3rd party solutions for your business needs
It boils down to a strategy choice
With most of a company’s infrastructure moving to, or already in, “the cloud”, why would you want today to build and manage your own blockchain infrastructure? With services like AlchemyAPI.io or Infura.io as your gateways to public blockchains, blockchain-as-a-service platforms are the key to unlocking consortium blockchains.
At atato, Kaleido is a core part of how we have been able to deliver blockchain platforms to customers in finance, supply chain, energy in two years. It is also a great way for people to develop, learn, and build blockchain platforms without worrying about the complexity of creating their networks and developing the associated infrastructure.
While it is great to see traditional cloud providers like Azure, and AWS starting to build a blockchain offering, as of 2020 the breadth and depth of Kaleido’s platform are just superior. You can also run the actual blockchain servers in Azure or AWS while using Kaleido’s platform for its value-added features and marketplace ecosystem if you want.
Disclaimer, we are Kaleido’s official partner, and as such, have an incentive to see them succeed. Full disclaimer, the only reason we became a partner in the first place is by being acustomer, as we love it so much!
If you want to get started
Sign-up for free on https://www.kaleido.io/ and create your first consortium for free, literally in minutes.
Then you can:
- Deploy your first token in 2 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m6YDEnV3OU
- Connect to your chain with Truffle https://docs.kaleido.io/developer-materials/communicate-via-json-rpc/connecting-with-truffle
- Build an oracle with Chainlink https://www.kaleido.io/blockchain-blog/how-chainlink-works-under-the-covers
- Use IPFS to store documents https://docs.kaleido.io/kaleido-services/ipfs/
- Check-out the great articles from Sophia, Steve, Jim, Peter and all the incredible team at Kaleido https://www.kaleido.io/blog
The sky is the limit
And if you need help to learn to fly, or want to hire a pilot and stewards crew, we are here to help!
Our team, based in Bangkok can offer blockchain training, development workshops, executive workshops, blockchain minimum viable product packages, and of course full-blown production-ready blockchain platforms.
Thanks for reading and we hope that you found this article useful! Please do get in touch with us to learn more https://www.atato.com/contact/.
Cheers,
Guillaume
