BlockApps CEO Likens The Block Chain ‘Sandbox’ To Oracle’s Database RoleBlockApps, a Microsoft affiliate designed to provide an enterprise block chain toolkit to help businesses develop new functionalities, brings to mind the role that Oracle plays in the future of decentralized databases, according to Victor Wong, BlockApps CEO.
In an interview with International Business Times, Wong cited Oracle’s role as a database provider as a parallel to BlockApp’s role providing tools such as smart contracts for businesses to use to create new functionalities.
Microsoft Enters The Block Chain Arena
Microsoft partnered with an Ethereum-based startup, ConsenSys, to deliver block chain as an enterprise solution for clients of its cloud-based Azure service, as reported by CCN in the past. ConsenSys is an Ethereum-coder collective that will allow enterprise users on Azure to access Ethereum Blockchain-as-a-Service (E BaaS).
Microsoft believes the new technology will help financial institutions experiment with block chain technology on its Azure platform.
BlockApps is essentially a private block chain “sandbox” where developers can experiment with applications before releasing them into the Ethereum block chain or elsewhere.
STRATO, BlockApps’ flagship, provides a block chain ledger that runs smart contracts that can be customized for environments where scalability and privacy are critical. The STRATO toolkit is part of Microsoft’s block-chain-as-a-service for customers on the Azure cloud service.
What Will Oracle Do With Block Chains?
In reporting Wong’s comparison between BlockApps and Oracle, International Business Times noted that it has reached out in the past to Oracle to get its take on distributed ledger systems, but got no input. Oracle getting into block chains is like an oil company getting into electric cars, bitcoin hardliners have noted.
Block chain systems have to interoperate with existing ones, Wong said. This holds true for Microsoft Azure, Oracle databases or any existing infrastructure.
STRATO, for its part, is built in Haskell, the programming language that has a finance track record and is embedded in big banks’ trading operations. BlockApps has come “full circle” in a sense as Microsoft cradled Haskell for 20 years and incubated most of its compiler work.
Building block chains provided a good use case for showing off Haskell’s benefits, added James Hormuzdiar, BlockApps chief technology officer. He said the specification is executable but statistically verifiable; if it compiles, it is correct. It also scales well and has proven itself in mission critical financial applications.
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/blockapps-ceo-likens-block-chain-sandbox-oracles-database-role/
