Recently Oracle has joined the Hyperledger consortium to offer its own Blockchain cloud service. Using Hyperledger fabric Oracle prepares to offer an enterprise grade distributed ledger cloud platform with numerous benefits to new as well as its existing customers. So the question is it is another blockchain solution or is it something more than that? Here we get into more details to analyze and understand the Oracle offering, its strength and how it can really make a difference to its existing Oracle customer base!
My earlier white paper published on infosys.com discusses how integrating the blockchain with ERP can bring an end-to-end supply chain transparency, from the most basic raw material to the final product in procession of a consumer. The paper discussed challenges like interoperability between established enterprise platforms like ERP systems and blockchains. Blockchain as an enterprise chain infrastructure (not standalone Blockchain systems), and security and compliance for enterprises to interact and share solutions and transactions. So how do we overcome such challenges? As one says 'Necessity is the mother of all inventions' and Oracle Blockchain Services is one such invention which can really bring in a new era where Blockchain is no longer a separate, standalone system rather very much a part of the existing ERP architecture with similar technology and strengthening the enterprise-grade distributed ledger platform with this offering being on the cloud. Hyperledger fabric enabled Oracle Blockchain service on the cloud can help customers build new blockchain-based applications and help existing Oracle customers to extended their Oracle SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and EBS investments. Due to all Oracle architecture the technology component is dynamic and versatile with REST APIs, SOAP APIs and SOA architecture helping to integrate almost real time data across systems for better decision making.
This new kid on the block is something more than the existing products mainly because of the 420,000 customers which Oracle enjoys and the ability it provides in extending the use of EBS/SaaS/PaaS and databases technologies. Oracle by virtue of its unique position in the ERP market with dominant On Premise, cloud application products and best of breed integration architectures with Fusion middleware and SOA suites. With variety of customers in place, Oracle with all these backbone technologies can provide simple and easy integration ability for customers to be on the oracle blockchain network leveraging the existing manpower as well infrastructure and gaining supply chain transparency. With Oracle Database, Oracle Platform and Technology like SOA and APIs the blockchain application will be extremely scalable, secure, robust and tightly integrated. Additionally the Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service have Oracle Cloud App Dev platform and built-in DevOps capabilities thus providing flexible integration capability with cost effective deployment and support.
The Oracle Blockchain network is initiated by a founding member who creates all components required to run a fully-fledged blockchain network. It then adds other member organizations generally termed as peers. Oracle BCS comes with the multi-channel support feature. It's a unique feature that can help separate/ control the transaction transparency among various peers within the same blockchain network. So in a way it provides ability to segregate peers within a blockchain network. With these the Oracle Blockchain seems extremely promising and can easily help existing Oracle database and Application customers to integrate Oracle blockchain cloud services with their system and begin the journey of supply chain transparency!
Be with us on 3rd October 3:45PM for the Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service, Strategy & Roadmap session (CON6847) to get more details on Oracle BCS.