Cloud computing giant Salesforce has recently unveiled its new Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) platform. The platform would make implementing an enterprise blockchain easier, which should help businesses.
Bitcoin and Ethereum are famous, but businesses can’t quite use these to realize the benefits from the blockchain technology. Bitcoin and Ethereum are public blockchains, therefore, they are open to all, including pseudonymous users!
Businesses need to protect their sensitive data, however, the full transparency of these networks don’t quite help here. Moreover, businesses need high scalability and transaction throughout, which is another area where public blockchains don’t quite make the cut.
The market for blockchain is massive, and it will likely reach $23.3 billion in 2023, as a Statista report indicates. There are important use cases for blockchain, e.g, supply chain assurance, identity management, securing “Internet of Things” (IoT), etc.
However, businesses need enterprise blockchain networks for this, since they offer permissioned networks, access control, better scalability, etc. Note that it’s hard to implement an enterprise blockchain since there are not enough platform and tools support.
This is an area where cloud computing providers can help since they are experts in offering platforms and tools. The move from Salesforce assumes importance here.
The right expertise for offering a Blockchain as a Service platform
Managed cloud computing services providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, IBM, Google, Microsoft, SAP, etc. have offerings like “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS), “Platform as a Service” (PaaS), etc. A few examples are AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), and AWS Elastic Beanstalk, which is the PaaS offering from AWS.
They have the right expertise for offering cloud infrastructure, tooling, etc. Salesforce is a reputed cloud provider and has its Salesforce PaaS. Salesforce owns Heroku, which is another famous PaaS platform. The company also has “Software as a Service” (SaaS) offerings.
It makes perfect sense that Salesforce has now entered the BaaS landscape, with their new offering, which is named Salesforce Blockchain. The company is using Salesforce Lightning, which is its application builder platform.
Salesforce is also using Hyperledger Fabric, also called “Fabric“, the popular framework for enterprise blockchain networks. Fabric offers many advantages, e.g., a modular architecture, pluggable components like consensus algorithms, high security using hardware features, channels for confidential data, etc.
This Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) offering from Salesforce offers managed cloud infrastructure, tools to build smart contracts, etc. Businesses planning to use an enterprise blockchain network will benefit from this since it eases the implementation significantly. Salesforce has currently offered its BaaS to a few selected partners, while they plan a global roll-out in 2020.
It’s worth noting here that other reputed cloud computing giants have their BaaS offerings too, e.g., “Blockchain on AWS“, IBM Blockchain platform, and SAP blockchain services. Microsoft has launched its blockchain platform, moreover, Huwaei had earlier launched its BaaS platform.
Managed BaaS offerings in aid of businesses
Beyond cryptocurrencies and decentralized businesses, realizing the potential of blockchain needs enterprise blockchain networks. Managed BaaS offerings from cloud computing giants like Salesforce are the right steps in this direction.
