Focuses on creating, deploying, and managing blockchain applications on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The text explores foundational blockchain concepts, contrasting them with traditional centralized systems and highlighting benefits like immutability and decentralization. It provides practical instruction on utilizing AWS Managed Blockchain, AWS Blockchain Templates, and Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB), specifically with Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric frameworks. The guide includes detailed steps for setting up private blockchain networks, writing Solidity smart contracts, and developing front-end applications for asset tracking and supply chain management.
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You can listen and download our episodes for free on more than 10 different platforms:
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Get the Book now from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Building-Enterprise-Blockchain-Solutions-AWS/dp/9390684439?&linkCode=ll1&tag=cvthunderx-20&linkId=e00a4b5d76bc36a9b7f37853cac541b5&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the deep Dive. We're here again to
sift through the information, cut out the noise, and really
get to the core insights for you. Today we're jumping
into something pretty significant enterprise blockchain solutions, specifically on AWS.
And Okay, let's just be clear upfront, this isn't really
about bitcoin speculation or anything like that. We're looking at
(00:21):
a much deeper shift, sort of a fundamental change in
how businesses can operate, how they track things, how they
well established trust online. Our goal here is to give
you that clear understanding, that shortcut to knowing what's important
in this pretty complex area exactly.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And we've gathered quite a bit articles, white papers, AWS
docs trying to cover it all, from you know, the
basic blockchain ideas right through to the specific AWS tools
and how companies are actually using this stuff. By the end,
you should have a really solid grasp of why this matters,
not just for big tech, but potentially well for your
own context.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Okay, so let's start right at the beginning the why
why blockchain? Now, we've had databases and web systems for ages, right,
what problems are we actually trying to solve here? Well,
I think the traditional systems web two point zero centralized stuff.
They have some built in challenges like trust, can you
always trust the data from single source, especially if they
(01:16):
control it completely, And tracking things accurately. Think about high
value goods or a complex supply chain. Knowing exactly where
something came from it's providence that can be surprisingly hard.
Or even tracking something simple like a package of food
that needs to stay cold, getting real time, verifiable data
on its journey often not possible. And then there's the
whole issue of middleman. They add costs, they add complexity.
(01:38):
You hear about, say a coffee farmer getting just pennies
on the dollar for beans you pay a premium for.
Blockchain offers a way to tackle that inefficiency, and.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
That's where blockchain kind of steps in. It's fundamentally a
different model. Think peer to peer network, shared information, secured
everyone agrees, no central boss. At its heart, it's a
distributed ledger, it's a mutable meaning tamper proof, it's secured
using critography, and it's decentralized. Let's maybe unpack those a bit.
So first up, cryptographically secure transactions get bundled into blocks.
(02:09):
These blocks are linked chained together using cryptographic hashes like
SAHA two fifty six is a common one. These hashes
are incredibly sensitive. Change one tiny bit of data, the
hash totally changes, so any tampering is instantly obvious. That's
the chain part. It makes the history secure. Second, and
this is like a huge deal for trust immutability. Once
(02:30):
data is written to the blockchain agreed upon, it basically
can't be changed or deleded. It's a tend only if
you need to make an update, you don't overwrite the
old record. You add a new transaction in a new
block that shows the change. The whole history stays there,
fully traceable, critical for audits.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Okay. Wait, so if it's immutable, what if someone makes
a mistake, is it just stuck there forever wrong? Ah?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Good question. That's a common point of confusion. Immutable doesn't
mean you can't correct errors. It just means you can't
secretly erase them. You simply add a new transaction. That
six is the mistake. The original incorrect entry is still
there on the chain, but the history clearly shows it
was corrected later. No hiding things, got it?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Okay? Makes sense?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Then? Third, it's a distributed ledger, unlike your typical company database.
Stored in one place, the blockchain ledger is copied and
spread across many computers, many participants, often globally, everyone holds
an identical synchronized copy. And fourth tied to that is decentralization.
No single company or person owns or controls the whole network.
(03:29):
That removes single points of failure, gives control back to
the participants. And what really kicked things up a notch.
The second generational blockchain was smart contracts. These are basically
bits of code programs that live on the blockchain. They
contain business logic rules and they automatically execute when the
conditions in the code are met. Think of it like
(03:49):
a self enforcing digital agreement on ethereum. You'd probably write
these in solidity on hyper ledger fabric. They call it
chain code, often written in Go, no JS or Java.
They automate process is between parties.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
That's a big leap from just signing a paper contract. So, okay,
how does a transaction actually happen on the network with
all these pieces?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Right? So, you want to make a transaction, you create
it digitally, sign it to prove its yours, and then
broadcast it to the network. Nodes on the network minors
in some systems just validating peers and others. They pick
it up, they check it against the rules, run any
relevant smart contracts. Once enough of them agree it's valid,
that's the consensus part. It gets bundled into a new block.
(04:29):
That block gets added to the chain, and then that
new chain gets sent out to everybody, so all ledgers
are updated. It's how they all stay in sync and
trust the result.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
You mentioned consensus there and earlier things like proof of work.
Are there different ways they reach that agreement? What are
the trade offs?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah? Absolutely, Consensus mechanisms are key. Proof of work powder
W like bitcorn used involves solving really hard computational puzzles,
super secure but very energy intensive and slow. Then you
have proof of steak pos. This is what newer e
theoryum uses. It's more efficient. Participants lock up cryptos collateral
sort of like a security deposit to get a chance
of validate transactions, better performance, less energy, and in many
(05:07):
private enterprise settings you see proof of authority POA. Here,
transactions are validated by a set of pre approved trusted authorities.
Their identity and reputation are of the stake. It's much
faster because trust is based on identity, but it's more centralized, okay.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And that distinction seems really important for businesses. The difference
between say a public blockchain like Bitcoin or the main
Ethereum network where anyone can join, look at the data,
submit transactions. But yeah, they can be slow, maybe not
scalable enough, and privacy is limited. That's often not ideal
for corporate data, which leads us to private and permission blockchains.
(05:42):
These are more controlled environments. Only known, authorized participants can join,
transact and see certain data. This gives businesses the privacy,
the confidentiality, and often much better performance they need. Hyper
Ledger fabric, which we'll get to, is a really good
example here. So when you boil it all down, what
this really means for you, the listener, is that we're
moving towards systems where trust isn't just assumed or outsourced
(06:05):
to an intermediary, it's built right into the digital infrastructure.
This opens up possibilities for transparency and inefficiency that honestly
were just really difficult or impossible before. Okay, But if
blockchain is this powerful, this transformative, why isn't every company
using it for everything already? What's the hold up? Well?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
A big part of it is complexity historically setting up
and managing your own blockchain network. It's not trivial. You've
got hardware provisioning, software installation, managing security certificates, databases, networking scaling.
It's a lot of manual work, error prone, and it
takes specialized skills right.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Sounds like a barrier to entry for many.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Exactly, and that is where AWS comes into play, aiming
to simplify that whole process. They've got a suite of services.
The main one is probably Amazon Managed Blockchain. It's a
fully managed service. It takes care all at infrastructure, a
headache setting up nodes, managing certificates, scaling for frameworks like
hyperl Fabric and also Ethereum, so you get to focus
(07:03):
on building your actual application, your business logic, not wrestling
with the underlying plumbing.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Okay, so it handles the setup and maintenance precisely.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Then they also have AWS Blockchain templates. These are more
like quick start guides. They use automation to quickly deploy
the necessary AWS resources, networks, security groups, compute instances to
get a private Ethereum or hyper ledguer Fabric network up
and running fast. A good starting point. And finally, there's
the AWS Blockchain Partners Network. This is a whole ecosystem
(07:33):
of consulting firms and tech companies that have expertise using
AWS to build blockchain solutions, so you can find validated
solutions or get expert help.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Interesting, So AWS essentially lowering the barrier. They're providing this
sort of shortcut for businesses to tap into blockchains benefits
without getting bogged down and managing the complex infrastructure themselves
makes it way more accessible. Now let's take into something
slightly different but related. A key point is it not
every situation eating an immutable record also needs decentralization across
(08:03):
multiple organizations. Sometimes you need that tamper proof history but
within your own organization. And this brings us to Amazon
Quantum Letter Database or QLDB.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yeah. QLDB is fascinating because it solves a very specific
but very common enterprise need a verifiable, complete and immutable
log of changes for a centralized system of record. Think
about a bank's internal transaction history or maybe HR records
or system locks. They need absolute certainty that the history
hasn't been tampered with for audits for compliance, but they
(08:35):
don't need and probably don't want multiple competing banks or
entities involved in managing that specific internal data. Using a
full decentralized blockchain for that would just add complexity and
slow things down unnecessarily.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So it's like blockchains and mutability, but without the distributed
network part exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
QLDB is a fully managed centralized database, but it's designed
as a ledger. It keeps two things, the current state
of your data like a normal database, and a separate
append only journal. This journal records every single change, every
transaction forever, has a cryptographically linked chain of blocks, just
like a blockchain. This journal is immutable. You can't delete
from it, you can't modify past entries.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Wow. So it's like a perfect unchangeable audit trail built
right in.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Precisely, and the benefits are significant. It's cryptographically verifiable, you
can prove the integrity of the history. It's immutable and transparent,
highly scalable, easy to use, it's serverless, and critically because
it's centralized, no complex consensus needed, so it offers really
high performance, much faster than decentralized blockchains. Plus, it supports
(09:40):
SQL like queries and has ACD properties, which is vital
for transactional data.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Can you give us an example of where you'd use QLDB.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Sure, imagine building that internal banking system for auditing, tracking
customer accounts, loans, transactions. Auditors need to trust that history
with QLDB. They can use the journal and something called
a QLDB digest basically a hash summary of the entire
history to mathematically verify that no record has been altered, added,
sneakily or deleted from the history. Complete transparency for auditors.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Okay, that's a real aha moment for me. QLDV shows
that blockchain isn't the only answer for immutability. Sometimes a
centralized verifiable ledger is actually the better fit, giving you
trust without the overhead of decentralization. It's about picking the
right tool exactly right.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Choose the tech that solves the actual problem.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
All right, let's pivot back to the decentralized world, specifically
to one of the major frameworks AWS supports, one built
explicitly for enterprise needs, hyper ledger Fabric.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yes, hyper ledger Fabric is definitely a key player in
the enterprise space. It's open source, hosted by the Lenux Foundation,
and crucially, it's a permissioned framework. This means it's designed
for known participants. You need a verified identity, usually via
a certificate authority to even join the network. That gives
businesses the control they need over who.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Participates, control and privacy, I imagine absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Fabric has a powerful feature called channels. These allow you
to create private subnetworks within the main blockchain network. So
let's say you're collaborating with two different suppliers on the
same blockchain. You can have a private channel with supplier
A and a separate private channel with supplier B. They
only see the transactions and data relevant to their channel,
ensuring privacy and confidentiality even among competitors on the same network.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
That sounds incredibly useful for business consortia it is.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Fabric also has a modular architecture. You can plug in
different components for things like consensus, identity management, etc. It's flexible.
It's also known for high transaction throughput and performance, partly
because it separates different feeses of the transaction process and
a big plus for developers. You write the smart contracts
the chain code in common general purpose languages like Java,
(11:51):
Go or no JS. No need to learn a niche
blockchain language.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
And the killer future for many businesses, probably.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
That it requires no cryptocurrency. Unlike public chains like Bitcoin
or Ethereum, where you need native crypto for fees or incentives,
fabric networks operate without one. This removed a huge layer
of complexity, volatility, and regulatory concern for many enterprises. The
basic flow is a client application sends a transaction proposal.
Certain pre defined peers called endorsing peers, check it and
(12:21):
simulate the chain code. If it's valid, they endorse it.
The endorsed transaction then goes to an ordering service, which
sequences transactions into blocks. These blocks are then sent to
all the committing peers, who validate them again and finally
write them to their copy of the ledger.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Okay, let's make this concrete a use case. How about
the healthcare supply chain that seems complex and high stakes.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Perfect example, think about pharmaceuticals or medical devices. You have manufacturers, distributors, hospitals, pharmacies,
a complex web. Current challenges are huge verifying everyone's identity KYC,
tracking the exact origin and handling of sensitive products, provenance,
loads of paperwork, ownership disputes if something goes wrong, high costs,
(13:03):
and sadly, the risk of counterfeit drugs entering the chain.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
How does Fabric help there.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Well, it provides that end to end traceability. Every movement,
every handover can be recorded immutably. Auditing becomes much simpler
and more reliable. Smart contracts can automate agreements like payment,
release upon verified delivery and temperature checks. Consensus builds trust
between all parties. The permission nature and channels provide the
necessary privacy for sensitive health data. It offers security and
(13:28):
decentralization where needed, and you can easily onboard new participants
like a new distributor, giving them access to the relevant
parts of the shared trusted ledger.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah, you can really see how Fabric specific features address
those real world enterprise pain points, control, privacy, performance, no
crypto needed, It's about building efficient trusted business networks. Okay,
shifting gears one last time to the other major framework,
AWS supports the one often called the World Computer.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Right Ethereum. While Fabric is very enterprise focused, Ethereum started
with a broader vision, a general purpose platform for decentralized
applications or DAPs. It aimed to go way beyond Bitcoin's
financial focus. Key to Ethereum is the Ethereum Virtual machine
or EVM. Think of it as a global processor for
the Ethereum network. It runs the smart contract code and
(14:18):
ensures every node on the network calculates the same result
for every transaction, maintaining a consistent state, and.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It uses accounts similar to banks sort of.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
There are two main types. Externally owned accounts eoas are
what users like you and me would have, controlled by
private keys. Then there are contract accounts, which are actually
controlled by the code of a smart contract itself. To
do anything on Ethereum, send funds. Run a contract, you
need ether ether, which is the network's cryptocurrency. You use
(14:47):
the Ether to pay for gas. Gas is an a
currency itself. It's a unit measuring the computational work needed
for a transaction or contract execution. More complex operations cost
more gas.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
And the smart contracts themselves still send.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
They're those self executing programs on Ethereum. They're primarily written
in a language called Solidity, then compiled down to bytecode
that the EVM can understand. Developers often use tools like
the remix online ide to write and test them. Now.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Ethereum is known for its big public network main net,
but are there other options?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yes, there are several test nets like Cipolia or gorely currently,
which are public testing grounds where developers can deploy and
test apps without spending real ether. And importantly, for some
enterprise uses, you can absolutely create private and permissioned Ethereum networks.
These give you a controlled environment, but still let you
(15:39):
leverage Ethereum's powerful smart contract engine and tooling aws, for instance,
makes it easy to spin these up.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Okay, let's ground this with an example. How about asset tracking,
but maybe using Ethereum this time.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Sure, Let's take vehicle tracking cars moving from manufacturer to
shipper to dealer to buyer. The same challenges exist verifying parties,
proving origin, managing agreements, handling ownership transfer, potential damage claims, costs.
A private Ethereum network could offer similar benefits to fabric
here traceability, consensus automation via smart contracts. Imagine a digital
(16:12):
title transferring automatically upon final payment, security decentralization. The smart
contract could define the vehicle's state, ownership and the rules
for transferring it. Each step is a transaction recorded on
the chain. Developers building this might use tools like ganash
for a local test blockchain, the Truffle suite to manage, compiling, testing,
and deploying their solidity contracts, and maybe web three, dot
(16:34):
JS or Ether's js JavaScript libraries to let a web
application interact with the Ethereum network.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
So wrapping up Ethereum, what's the key takeaway? It feels
like it offers this really powerful programmable layer for building
entirely new kinds of applications where trust is inherent baked
right in.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
That's a good way to put it. It enables decentralized
applications that can transform processes involving asset ownership, complex multi
party workflows, supply chains, potentially creating much more direct and
transparent interactions by minimizing intermediaries.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Wow, okay, we have covered a lot of ground today,
from the basic why of blockchain, those core concepts like mutability, consensus,
smart contracts, then diving into how AWS makes it accessible
with managed blockchain and templates. We looked at the specific
case for a centralized ledger with QLDB, the enterprise powerhouse
hyper Ledger fabric, and finally the decentralized application platform of Ethereum.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, it's been quite the journey, and I think the
main thing that emerges is that these technologies whether it's
a centralized ledger like QLDB focused on internal auditibility, or
decentralized network like Fabric or Ethereum built for collaboration cross organizations. Yeah,
they all offer compelling ways to solve fundamental business problems
around trust, transparency, and efficiency. They provide tools to build
systems where you can verify, not just trust.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
That definitely leaves us with something to think about and
maybe a final question for you listening right now, think
about your own world, your work, maybe even personal admin.
Where do you see a process burdened by lack of trust,
too many intermediaries, or just inefficiency. Where could a verifiable,
immutable ledger, maybe centralized, maybe decentralized, make a real difference.
(18:12):
What friction points could be smoothed out, what could be revolutionized?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Next?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Lots to consider. Thanks for joining us on this deep dive.
We'll catch you next time with more insights from the source.
Welcome back to the deep Dive. We're here again to
sift through the information, cut out the noise, and really
get to the core insights for you. Today we're jumping
into something pretty significant enterprise blockchain solutions, specifically on AWS.
And Okay, let's just be clear upfront, this isn't really
about bitcoin speculation or anything like that. We're looking at
(00:21):
a much deeper shift, sort of a fundamental change in
how businesses can operate, how they track things, how they
well established trust online. Our goal here is to give
you that clear understanding, that shortcut to knowing what's important
in this pretty complex area exactly.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And we've gathered quite a bit articles, white papers, AWS
docs trying to cover it all, from you know, the
basic blockchain ideas right through to the specific AWS tools
and how companies are actually using this stuff. By the end,
you should have a really solid grasp of why this matters,
not just for big tech, but potentially well for your
own context.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Okay, so let's start right at the beginning the why
why blockchain? Now, we've had databases and web systems for ages, right,
what problems are we actually trying to solve here? Well,
I think the traditional systems web two point zero centralized stuff.
They have some built in challenges like trust, can you
always trust the data from single source, especially if they
(01:16):
control it completely, And tracking things accurately. Think about high
value goods or a complex supply chain. Knowing exactly where
something came from it's providence that can be surprisingly hard.
Or even tracking something simple like a package of food
that needs to stay cold, getting real time, verifiable data
on its journey often not possible. And then there's the
whole issue of middleman. They add costs, they add complexity.
(01:38):
You hear about, say a coffee farmer getting just pennies
on the dollar for beans you pay a premium for.
Blockchain offers a way to tackle that inefficiency, and.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
That's where blockchain kind of steps in. It's fundamentally a
different model. Think peer to peer network, shared information, secured
everyone agrees, no central boss. At its heart, it's a
distributed ledger, it's a mutable meaning tamper proof, it's secured
using critography, and it's decentralized. Let's maybe unpack those a bit.
So first up, cryptographically secure transactions get bundled into blocks.
(02:09):
These blocks are linked chained together using cryptographic hashes like
SAHA two fifty six is a common one. These hashes
are incredibly sensitive. Change one tiny bit of data, the
hash totally changes, so any tampering is instantly obvious. That's
the chain part. It makes the history secure. Second, and
this is like a huge deal for trust immutability. Once
(02:30):
data is written to the blockchain agreed upon, it basically
can't be changed or deleded. It's a tend only if
you need to make an update, you don't overwrite the
old record. You add a new transaction in a new
block that shows the change. The whole history stays there,
fully traceable, critical for audits.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Okay. Wait, so if it's immutable, what if someone makes
a mistake, is it just stuck there forever wrong? Ah?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Good question. That's a common point of confusion. Immutable doesn't
mean you can't correct errors. It just means you can't
secretly erase them. You simply add a new transaction. That
six is the mistake. The original incorrect entry is still
there on the chain, but the history clearly shows it
was corrected later. No hiding things, got it?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Okay? Makes sense?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Then? Third, it's a distributed ledger, unlike your typical company database.
Stored in one place, the blockchain ledger is copied and
spread across many computers, many participants, often globally, everyone holds
an identical synchronized copy. And fourth tied to that is decentralization.
No single company or person owns or controls the whole network.
(03:29):
That removes single points of failure, gives control back to
the participants. And what really kicked things up a notch.
The second generational blockchain was smart contracts. These are basically
bits of code programs that live on the blockchain. They
contain business logic rules and they automatically execute when the
conditions in the code are met. Think of it like
(03:49):
a self enforcing digital agreement on ethereum. You'd probably write
these in solidity on hyper ledger fabric. They call it
chain code, often written in Go, no JS or Java.
They automate process is between parties.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
That's a big leap from just signing a paper contract. So, okay,
how does a transaction actually happen on the network with
all these pieces?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Right? So, you want to make a transaction, you create
it digitally, sign it to prove its yours, and then
broadcast it to the network. Nodes on the network minors
in some systems just validating peers and others. They pick
it up, they check it against the rules, run any
relevant smart contracts. Once enough of them agree it's valid,
that's the consensus part. It gets bundled into a new block.
(04:29):
That block gets added to the chain, and then that
new chain gets sent out to everybody, so all ledgers
are updated. It's how they all stay in sync and
trust the result.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
You mentioned consensus there and earlier things like proof of work.
Are there different ways they reach that agreement? What are
the trade offs?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah? Absolutely, Consensus mechanisms are key. Proof of work powder
W like bitcorn used involves solving really hard computational puzzles,
super secure but very energy intensive and slow. Then you
have proof of steak pos. This is what newer e
theoryum uses. It's more efficient. Participants lock up cryptos collateral
sort of like a security deposit to get a chance
of validate transactions, better performance, less energy, and in many
(05:07):
private enterprise settings you see proof of authority POA. Here,
transactions are validated by a set of pre approved trusted authorities.
Their identity and reputation are of the stake. It's much
faster because trust is based on identity, but it's more centralized, okay.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And that distinction seems really important for businesses. The difference
between say a public blockchain like Bitcoin or the main
Ethereum network where anyone can join, look at the data,
submit transactions. But yeah, they can be slow, maybe not
scalable enough, and privacy is limited. That's often not ideal
for corporate data, which leads us to private and permission blockchains.
(05:42):
These are more controlled environments. Only known, authorized participants can join,
transact and see certain data. This gives businesses the privacy,
the confidentiality, and often much better performance they need. Hyper
Ledger fabric, which we'll get to, is a really good
example here. So when you boil it all down, what
this really means for you, the listener, is that we're
moving towards systems where trust isn't just assumed or outsourced
(06:05):
to an intermediary, it's built right into the digital infrastructure.
This opens up possibilities for transparency and inefficiency that honestly
were just really difficult or impossible before. Okay, But if
blockchain is this powerful, this transformative, why isn't every company
using it for everything already? What's the hold up? Well?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
A big part of it is complexity historically setting up
and managing your own blockchain network. It's not trivial. You've
got hardware provisioning, software installation, managing security certificates, databases, networking scaling.
It's a lot of manual work, error prone, and it
takes specialized skills right.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Sounds like a barrier to entry for many.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Exactly, and that is where AWS comes into play, aiming
to simplify that whole process. They've got a suite of services.
The main one is probably Amazon Managed Blockchain. It's a
fully managed service. It takes care all at infrastructure, a
headache setting up nodes, managing certificates, scaling for frameworks like
hyperl Fabric and also Ethereum, so you get to focus
(07:03):
on building your actual application, your business logic, not wrestling
with the underlying plumbing.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Okay, so it handles the setup and maintenance precisely.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Then they also have AWS Blockchain templates. These are more
like quick start guides. They use automation to quickly deploy
the necessary AWS resources, networks, security groups, compute instances to
get a private Ethereum or hyper ledguer Fabric network up
and running fast. A good starting point. And finally, there's
the AWS Blockchain Partners Network. This is a whole ecosystem
(07:33):
of consulting firms and tech companies that have expertise using
AWS to build blockchain solutions, so you can find validated
solutions or get expert help.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Interesting, So AWS essentially lowering the barrier. They're providing this
sort of shortcut for businesses to tap into blockchains benefits
without getting bogged down and managing the complex infrastructure themselves
makes it way more accessible. Now let's take into something
slightly different but related. A key point is it not
every situation eating an immutable record also needs decentralization across
(08:03):
multiple organizations. Sometimes you need that tamper proof history but
within your own organization. And this brings us to Amazon
Quantum Letter Database or QLDB.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yeah. QLDB is fascinating because it solves a very specific
but very common enterprise need a verifiable, complete and immutable
log of changes for a centralized system of record. Think
about a bank's internal transaction history or maybe HR records
or system locks. They need absolute certainty that the history
hasn't been tampered with for audits for compliance, but they
(08:35):
don't need and probably don't want multiple competing banks or
entities involved in managing that specific internal data. Using a
full decentralized blockchain for that would just add complexity and
slow things down unnecessarily.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So it's like blockchains and mutability, but without the distributed
network part exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
QLDB is a fully managed centralized database, but it's designed
as a ledger. It keeps two things, the current state
of your data like a normal database, and a separate
append only journal. This journal records every single change, every
transaction forever, has a cryptographically linked chain of blocks, just
like a blockchain. This journal is immutable. You can't delete
from it, you can't modify past entries.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Wow. So it's like a perfect unchangeable audit trail built
right in.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Precisely, and the benefits are significant. It's cryptographically verifiable, you
can prove the integrity of the history. It's immutable and transparent,
highly scalable, easy to use, it's serverless, and critically because
it's centralized, no complex consensus needed, so it offers really
high performance, much faster than decentralized blockchains. Plus, it supports
(09:40):
SQL like queries and has ACD properties, which is vital
for transactional data.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Can you give us an example of where you'd use QLDB.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Sure, imagine building that internal banking system for auditing, tracking
customer accounts, loans, transactions. Auditors need to trust that history
with QLDB. They can use the journal and something called
a QLDB digest basically a hash summary of the entire
history to mathematically verify that no record has been altered, added,
sneakily or deleted from the history. Complete transparency for auditors.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Okay, that's a real aha moment for me. QLDV shows
that blockchain isn't the only answer for immutability. Sometimes a
centralized verifiable ledger is actually the better fit, giving you
trust without the overhead of decentralization. It's about picking the
right tool exactly right.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Choose the tech that solves the actual problem.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
All right, let's pivot back to the decentralized world, specifically
to one of the major frameworks AWS supports, one built
explicitly for enterprise needs, hyper ledger Fabric.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yes, hyper ledger Fabric is definitely a key player in
the enterprise space. It's open source, hosted by the Lenux Foundation,
and crucially, it's a permissioned framework. This means it's designed
for known participants. You need a verified identity, usually via
a certificate authority to even join the network. That gives
businesses the control they need over who.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Participates, control and privacy, I imagine absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Fabric has a powerful feature called channels. These allow you
to create private subnetworks within the main blockchain network. So
let's say you're collaborating with two different suppliers on the
same blockchain. You can have a private channel with supplier
A and a separate private channel with supplier B. They
only see the transactions and data relevant to their channel,
ensuring privacy and confidentiality even among competitors on the same network.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
That sounds incredibly useful for business consortia it is.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Fabric also has a modular architecture. You can plug in
different components for things like consensus, identity management, etc. It's flexible.
It's also known for high transaction throughput and performance, partly
because it separates different feeses of the transaction process and
a big plus for developers. You write the smart contracts
the chain code in common general purpose languages like Java,
(11:51):
Go or no JS. No need to learn a niche
blockchain language.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
And the killer future for many businesses, probably.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
That it requires no cryptocurrency. Unlike public chains like Bitcoin
or Ethereum, where you need native crypto for fees or incentives,
fabric networks operate without one. This removed a huge layer
of complexity, volatility, and regulatory concern for many enterprises. The
basic flow is a client application sends a transaction proposal.
Certain pre defined peers called endorsing peers, check it and
(12:21):
simulate the chain code. If it's valid, they endorse it.
The endorsed transaction then goes to an ordering service, which
sequences transactions into blocks. These blocks are then sent to
all the committing peers, who validate them again and finally
write them to their copy of the ledger.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Okay, let's make this concrete a use case. How about
the healthcare supply chain that seems complex and high stakes.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Perfect example, think about pharmaceuticals or medical devices. You have manufacturers, distributors, hospitals, pharmacies,
a complex web. Current challenges are huge verifying everyone's identity KYC,
tracking the exact origin and handling of sensitive products, provenance,
loads of paperwork, ownership disputes if something goes wrong, high costs,
(13:03):
and sadly, the risk of counterfeit drugs entering the chain.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
How does Fabric help there.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Well, it provides that end to end traceability. Every movement,
every handover can be recorded immutably. Auditing becomes much simpler
and more reliable. Smart contracts can automate agreements like payment,
release upon verified delivery and temperature checks. Consensus builds trust
between all parties. The permission nature and channels provide the
necessary privacy for sensitive health data. It offers security and
(13:28):
decentralization where needed, and you can easily onboard new participants
like a new distributor, giving them access to the relevant
parts of the shared trusted ledger.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah, you can really see how Fabric specific features address
those real world enterprise pain points, control, privacy, performance, no
crypto needed, It's about building efficient trusted business networks. Okay,
shifting gears one last time to the other major framework,
AWS supports the one often called the World Computer.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Right Ethereum. While Fabric is very enterprise focused, Ethereum started
with a broader vision, a general purpose platform for decentralized
applications or DAPs. It aimed to go way beyond Bitcoin's
financial focus. Key to Ethereum is the Ethereum Virtual machine
or EVM. Think of it as a global processor for
the Ethereum network. It runs the smart contract code and
(14:18):
ensures every node on the network calculates the same result
for every transaction, maintaining a consistent state, and.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It uses accounts similar to banks sort of.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
There are two main types. Externally owned accounts eoas are
what users like you and me would have, controlled by
private keys. Then there are contract accounts, which are actually
controlled by the code of a smart contract itself. To
do anything on Ethereum, send funds. Run a contract, you
need ether ether, which is the network's cryptocurrency. You use
(14:47):
the Ether to pay for gas. Gas is an a
currency itself. It's a unit measuring the computational work needed
for a transaction or contract execution. More complex operations cost
more gas.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
And the smart contracts themselves still send.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
They're those self executing programs on Ethereum. They're primarily written
in a language called Solidity, then compiled down to bytecode
that the EVM can understand. Developers often use tools like
the remix online ide to write and test them. Now.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Ethereum is known for its big public network main net,
but are there other options?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yes, there are several test nets like Cipolia or gorely currently,
which are public testing grounds where developers can deploy and
test apps without spending real ether. And importantly, for some
enterprise uses, you can absolutely create private and permissioned Ethereum networks.
These give you a controlled environment, but still let you
(15:39):
leverage Ethereum's powerful smart contract engine and tooling aws, for instance,
makes it easy to spin these up.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Okay, let's ground this with an example. How about asset tracking,
but maybe using Ethereum this time.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Sure, Let's take vehicle tracking cars moving from manufacturer to
shipper to dealer to buyer. The same challenges exist verifying parties,
proving origin, managing agreements, handling ownership transfer, potential damage claims, costs.
A private Ethereum network could offer similar benefits to fabric
here traceability, consensus automation via smart contracts. Imagine a digital
(16:12):
title transferring automatically upon final payment, security decentralization. The smart
contract could define the vehicle's state, ownership and the rules
for transferring it. Each step is a transaction recorded on
the chain. Developers building this might use tools like ganash
for a local test blockchain, the Truffle suite to manage, compiling, testing,
and deploying their solidity contracts, and maybe web three, dot
(16:34):
JS or Ether's js JavaScript libraries to let a web
application interact with the Ethereum network.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
So wrapping up Ethereum, what's the key takeaway? It feels
like it offers this really powerful programmable layer for building
entirely new kinds of applications where trust is inherent baked
right in.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
That's a good way to put it. It enables decentralized
applications that can transform processes involving asset ownership, complex multi
party workflows, supply chains, potentially creating much more direct and
transparent interactions by minimizing intermediaries.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Wow, okay, we have covered a lot of ground today,
from the basic why of blockchain, those core concepts like mutability, consensus,
smart contracts, then diving into how AWS makes it accessible
with managed blockchain and templates. We looked at the specific
case for a centralized ledger with QLDB, the enterprise powerhouse
hyper Ledger fabric, and finally the decentralized application platform of Ethereum.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, it's been quite the journey, and I think the
main thing that emerges is that these technologies whether it's
a centralized ledger like QLDB focused on internal auditibility, or
decentralized network like Fabric or Ethereum built for collaboration cross organizations. Yeah,
they all offer compelling ways to solve fundamental business problems
around trust, transparency, and efficiency. They provide tools to build
systems where you can verify, not just trust.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
That definitely leaves us with something to think about and
maybe a final question for you listening right now, think
about your own world, your work, maybe even personal admin.
Where do you see a process burdened by lack of trust,
too many intermediaries, or just inefficiency. Where could a verifiable,
immutable ledger, maybe centralized, maybe decentralized, make a real difference.
(18:12):
What friction points could be smoothed out, what could be revolutionized?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Next?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Lots to consider. Thanks for joining us on this deep dive.
We'll catch you next time with more insights from the source.
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