Life before the cloud meant that most data storage solutions were decentralized and hosted on servers on-site. That local presence means more control for the enterprise, but it creates problems with scalability and efficiency. For this reason, many companies have been switching to the cloud. Indeed, there are many benefits to cloud adoption in terms of scalability, flexibility, data storage, reliability, cost-effectiveness, uptime, and others. Still, one of the downsides has traditionally been security because a lot of cloud security requires an enterprise to rely on third parties to secure private, sensitive data. For this reason, blockchain could be a more affordable and efficient technology to use for security purposes.
It’s not surprising then that many companies have begun to make the switch towards cloud computing instead. After all, it’s much more flexible and cost-effective, giving organizations access to incredible value and allowing them to replicate their data across a range of data centers, offering redundancy and reliable uptime solutions. Of course, with all the benefits cloud computing has to offer, there are some downsides too. Whenever we use a cloud service, we need to put a significant amount of trust in third parties to keep our most private and sensitive data secure.
Ready-to-use software
Several leading cloud providers now offer enterprise-grade blockchain solutions, including AWS, Oracle, and IBM. These enterprise solutions provide better scaling mechanisms, privacy, security, and additional protocol changes that make them much more appealing to the private sector. These functionalities deliver higher transaction speed and smart contract execution time.
Enterprise-grade DLT provides another functionality that is particularly useful for enterprises-the ability for collaboration. DLT enables unprecedented collaboration within large organizations and across companies as well. An example of the power of this enterprise collaboration ability is seen in the food industry. Several of the largest world food suppliers, including Walmart, Nestle, Unilever, Kroger, and others, are working to create a global food tracing system on blockchain. Collaboration is a crucial factor in providing complete visibility into the origins of potentially hazardous goods and in providing the ability to trace source of contamination quickly. These enterprise-grade solutions are setting unified standards for such collaboration, and they are largely responsible for faster blockchain adoption by enterprises and better interoperability between companies.
Improvements in Interoperability
Blockchain Solutions have suffered from a lack of connectivity mechanisms between differing blockchain solutions, creating obstacles to broader technology adoption. Recently this situation has improved, and tech companies are offering viable solutions to establish connections between different ledgers.
Ripple released a mid-ware arbitrary protocol that can “connect” different types of distributed and traditional centralized ledgers. The goal of this protocol is to improve interoperability between financial institutions. Another benefit of Interledger is that it allows users to store aggregate transaction data off a public blockchain by using a connector to transfer funds between private versions of the Ripple network.
Customer data privacy remains a huge challenge for enterprises because they need to constantly upgrade their systems to remain compliant with emerging regulations. By leveraging blockchain technology, businesses can reduce their data ownership and the challenge and cost of updating their systems. Customer information gets recorded on a distributed ledger and does not need to change hands when transactions are executed. Instead, users grant permission for access to those records whenever they are required. This allows enterprises to remain compliant with far less effort and users benefit from increased privacy and security.
For most enterprises, Blockchain is a promising new technology capable of transforming business processes across multiple industries apart from the financial sector. According to a survey by Deloitte, 74% of companies surveyed stated they already have a “compelling business case” for blockchain technology, while 34% reported they had already initiated a blockchain deployment.
