Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service: What is it & How it Works

Blockchain is undoubtedly one of the most exciting technologies right now. It comes with a hope of eventually revolutionizing the internet, and business in general hence, it is no surprise that all major corporations want a piece of the pie. Many of them are researching ways to utilize the technology to modernize and transform their business models.

This is a huge challenge as companies have to understand how blockchain works and select the right blockchain technologies, network, and platforms that will be best suited for them. Oracle is one of the companies that has taken the leap and now boasts a BaaS (Blockchain as a Service) service as a part of its cloud PaaS (Platform as a service) services: the Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service.

What is a cloud service?

Cloud services are software or platforms hosted by third-party providers available for users through the internet.
Cloud services aid in the flow of user data from clients(like a user’s laptop), through the internet, to the provider’s systems, and back. It is designed to allow anyone to set up a virtual office anywhere, and access your data anytime.

What does it mean?

The Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service is a company-level and pre-assembled platform to run smart contracts and maintain a tamper-proof distributed ledger. This service can be used to easily build secure and verifiable applications that share trusted data with suppliers which cannot be modified.

How does the Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service work?

Just like any blockchain network, this one also consists of validating peers that are responsible to update the ledger and respond to queries by executing smart contracts.

Smart Contracts refer to the set of standardized rules to govern a business that operates on a blockchain network.

Once all the nodes (or peers) reach a consensus on a given transaction order, the results are added to a tamper-proof data block secured through cryptography and sent to the network to be verified. If verification is complete, the block is added to the ledger, making the transaction irreversible and immutable.

Is Oracle creating a business network on its blockchain?

No, Oracle is providing a blockchain cloud platform, which can be used by customers to create business networks. Users can enable distributed ledger technology (DLT) and other blockchain features to build applications and business networks.

Advantages of Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service

1. Transparency: Any updates in the database will be replicated across all participants.

2. Security: Only authorized participants will be allowed to access the data that is otherwise encrypted.

3. Immutability: Blockchain databases can not be modified and the existence of a record cannot be denied either.

4. Oracle Managed service: This service offers zero-downtime managed patching and updates. It also includes embedded ledgers and configuration backups.

5. Object store integration: Automatically replicates backed-up data among Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

6. Integration in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Uses Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to incorporate infrastructure dependencies (managed containers, virtual machines, identity management, block and object storage).

7. Adds REST Proxy: Supports a lot of Fabric APIs using REST (a set of architectural constraints) for simpler transaction integration. Which helps simplify integration and simulates application for any change in the transaction flow.

8. Faster Integration: This service aids in plug-and-play enterprise adapters to integrate Oracle Saas, Paas, and other applications or business processes to streamline data exchange.

9. Management and Operations Console: Provides a better web user interface to help automate a lot of administration tasks like adding organizations to a network or ledger browsing, etc.

10. Replaces Ledger database world state store with Oracle Berkeley Database: Provides SQL-based rich query support and validates query results at commit time to maintain ledger integrity.

11. Integrated Rich History Database: Allows private data collection to an autonomous database on blockchain translation history. It also supports standard and blockchain tables for storing rich history.

12. Highly Available Architecture and Resilient Infrastructure: Designed as a secure, and scalable platform for autonomous recovery of network components for all business-critical enterprise applications.

Applications of Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service

The blockchain can be used below in numerous industries:

• Wholesale payments correspondent banking networks and international routes
• Capital markets and securities settlements
• Tracking counterfeit drugs
• Foreign transactions
• Supply chain management
• Clinical trials in the healthcare sector
• Finance commodities
• Trade finance
• Database maintenance
• Regulatory certification

It can also be used in the public sector for government records and regulatory certification. And in healthcare for clinical trials and anti-counterfeit drugs.

Summary

This is all about oracle blockchain cloud service. Hope you enjoyed it.