Amazon is officially inside the blockchain business in a big way.
Here, the company has announced the general availability of its Amazon Managed Blockchain (or AMB), a fully-managed service that is designed to help companies quickly create their own blockchain networks that are scalable and easy to create and manage.
Usually, managing blockchain is difficult as each member of a blockchain network has to provision hardware, install software, create and manage certificates for access control, and configure network settings.
As usage of a blockchain application grows, there is a lot of work involved in scaling the network. This include, and not limited to: monitoring resources across all nodes, adding or removing hardware, and managing the availability of the entire network.
This complexity is the reason why many customers typically need the help of consultants to make their blockchain project work.
And here, Amazon wants to help reduce the cost and troubles.
Originally announced at the company’s 're:Invent' event in late 2018, Amazon Managed Blockchain has been in preview for months.
Supporting two frameworks: Ethereum or Hyperledger Fabric, in a press release, the company said that customers “can quickly setup a blockchain network spanning multiple AWS accounts with a few clicks in the AWS Management Console,” as opposed to what it says are the difficult and expensive barriers to businesses creating their own networks.
“Customers simply choose their preferred framework […] add network members, and configure the member nodes that process transaction requests. Amazon Managed Blockchain takes care of the rest, creating a blockchain network that can span multiple AWS accounts and configuring the software, security, and network settings," reads an Amazon press release.
According to Rahul Pathak, General Manager, Amazon Managed Blockchain at AWS:
"Amazon Managed Blockchain takes care of provisioning nodes, setting up the network, managing certificates and security, and scaling the network. Customers can now get a functioning blockchain network set up quickly and easily, so they can focus on application development instead of keeping a blockchain network up and running."
Blockchain is often incorrectly conflated with cryptocurrency.
While the two terms are different, the association between them is indeed close, as blockchain is the technology that allows cryptocurrency to function.
On stage at the initial announcement at re:Invent, an Amazon spokesperson said that before AMB, Amazon examined more closely what sort of business use cases companies wanted from the blockchain. After analyzing the market, its the Amazon Managed Blockchain’s services and feature that emerged from those efforts.
For customers in businesses like finance, logistics, retail, and energy that need to perform transactions quickly across multiple entities, blockchain gives them the ability to execute contracts and share data, with an immutable record of the transactions, but without the need for a trusted and central authority.
In addition to making it easy for business customers to set up and manage blockchain networks, AMB also provides APIs to allow those customers to vote on memberships in their networks and to scale up or down more easily.
The company said that AMB supports thousands of applications running millions of transactions. Amazon also provides its AMB customers with the Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB), which gives customers the ability to gain advanced insight into key trends, such as who is transacting and what is the rate of their transactions.
This should come in handy for those who want to perform additional analysis.
AMB's general availability arrives first in northern Virginia before expanding to other regions.