One of the new technologies announced on Tuesday by VMware at its VMworld 2018 Europe conference is VMware Blockchain, which aims to provide enterprises a decentralized trust infrastructure based on permissioned blockchain.
The blockchain is a distributed database consisting of blocks that are linked and protected against unauthorized modifications using cryptography. Transactions are only written to a block after they are verified by a majority of nodes.
While blockchain is mainly known for its role as the public transaction ledger for cryptocurrencies, companies have been increasingly using blockchain for other purposes, including for identity verification and securing data and devices.
There are three types of blockchain networks: public, private and permissioned. Public blockchain is mainly used for cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, where anyone can join and any participant can make changes. In the case of a private blockchain, only verified participants can contribute. Permissioned blockchain is a mix between public and private and it provides numerous customization options.
Permissioned blockchain is fast and it’s increasingly used for enterprise applications, which is why the virtualization giant wants to help its customers by providing a hybrid, scalable and managed blockchain service.
“VMware Blockchain will provide the foundation for decentralized trust while delivering enterprise-grade scalability, reliability, security and manageability. The service will be integrated into existing VMware tools to help protect the network and compute functions that underlie a true enterprise blockchain,” said Mike DiPetrillo, blockchain senior director at VMware.
VMware Blockchain is being developed in collaboration with Dell Technologies, Deloitte and WWT, and it will be supported by both VMware products and IBM Cloud.
According to VMware, the new platform allows enterprises to deploy nodes across different cloud environments, it provides a central management interface, along with monitoring and auditing capabilities, and offers developers the tools and guidance they need.
VMware Blockchain is currently in beta. Organizations interested in testing it have been instructed to contact VMware.
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