AWS Enters Blockchain Market With 2 Dedicated Services

Entering the growing global blockchain market, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced Managed Blockchain service and a Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) to help companies manage business transactions that require full auditability.

Amazon Managed Blockchain makes it cost-effective for customers to create and manage secure blockchain networks that can scale to support thousands of applications running millions of transactions.

It supports two popular open source blockchain frameworks - Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric.

"This service is going to make it much easier for customers to use the two most popular blockchain frameworks," AWS CEO Andy Jassy told a packed house during his keynote address at ReInvent 2018 conference here on Wednesday.

Amazon QLDB is a transparent and cryptographically-verifiable ledger for applications that need a central, trusted authority to provide a permanent and complete record of transactions, like supply chain, financial, manufacturing, insurance, and HR.

Customers looking to implement blockchain technologies are typically trying to accomplish one of two things.

Some need a centralised ledger that records all changes or transactions and maintains an immutable record of these changes. This ledger is owned by a single trusted entity and is shared with any number of organisations that are working together.

Other customers want the immutable and verifiable capability provided by a ledger; however, they want to share data without a trusted central authority. For this, customers use blockchain frameworks like Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric.

"Many of our customers want to build applications where multiple parties can execute transactions without a central, trusted authority, and they also need to create a blockchain network.

"Building a scalable blockchain network with existing technologies is just too hard today, and that's why customers pay expensive consultants to help them," said Rahul Pathak, General Manager, Amazon Blockchain at AWS.

Amazon Managed Blockchain eliminates the muck involved in setting up a network, adding and removing members, and scaling to meet application demands.

"Customers can use either Ethereum or Hyperledger Fabric, the two most popular blockchain frameworks, and get a functioning blockchain network set up with just a few clicks," Pathak added.