SAN FRANCISCO–Oracle has joined the emerging world of blockchain financial-exchange security IT with the launching of the Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service at OpenWorld 2017.
The advanced, enterprise-grade distributed ledger cloud platform enables customers to speed up the pace of business and reduce cost and risk by securely extending enterprise resource planning, supply chain and other enterprise SaaS and on-premises applications to run tamper-resistant transactions on a trusted business network.
As part of Oracle Cloud Platform, Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service features an enterprise-grade blockchain platform that is fully managed by Oracle. The company said the service provides customers with rapid provisioning, built-in monitoring, continuous backup and point-in-time recovery.
Oracle is the latest major IT provider to offer a blockchain cloud service; IBM and Microsoft have both been offering their own version of this for a while. Big Blue launched its own blockchain cloud service a year ago.
Blockchain Defined
Even though it has been available for several years, blockchain is still a mystery to many business people. It is best known as the distributed database technology at the heart of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. It is hardened against tampering, preventing even its operators from revising or otherwise meddling with its continuously growing list of records.
Fundamentally, a blockchain consists of a circle of trusted partners who do business regularly and already have been vetted for security purposes.
In Bitcoin’s case, it serves as its public ledger of transactions. Fintech (financial technology) companies and other security-conscious enterprises are keeping a close eye on the technology, hoping blockchain will usher in an era of automated, efficient and fraud-free record-keeping and transaction systems.
“Blockchain holds the promise to fundamentally transform how business is done, making business-to-business interactions more secure, transparent, and efficient,” said Amit Zavery, Senior Vice President of the Oracle Cloud Platform. “Enterprises can now streamline operations across their ecosystem and expand their market reach with new revenue streams, sharing data and transacting within and outside the Oracle Cloud.”
What the Blockchain Cloud Service Can Do
Oracle claims its Blockchain Cloud Service enables customers to:
- Deliver business results with the ability to rapidly onboard and easily scale the network participants globally, while ensuring that operations run continually with resilience, high availability and autonomous recoverability.
- Accelerate innovation with Oracle Cloud Applications by extending enterprise boundaries to reduce friction in existing business processes and enable new business models and opportunity to access untapped revenue streams. The Applications Integration toolkit provides integrated applications, sample code, templates and design patterns to accelerate the integration of Blockchain applications to Oracle SaaS and on premises applications suites.
- Speed up business processes through trusted real-time information sharing across existing Oracle ERP Cloud, Oracle SCM Cloud, Netsuite SuiteCloud Platform or custom blockchain application integrations.
- Reduce risk, complexity and increase efficiency by securely automating cross-organization transactions, and providing reliable sharing of information both inside and outside the enterprise boundary. Combined, these can help reduce transaction costs, mitigate security and privacy risks for enterprises, and simplify compliance and audits.
- Accelerate time to market with REST API-driven platform and rich integration options in Oracle Cloud Platform. Enterprises can start developing blockchain applications without complex setup and provisioning and use API-driven development for cloud or on-premises applications with the REST API and API management service to invoke blockchain services directly or with pre-built integrations from Oracle Cloud.
Oracle said it plans to offer Oracle BlockChain Cloud Service as part of Oracle Platform for Open Banking and provide connectivity between Oracle FLEXCUBE and other banks to enable greater security, scalability and transparency in the information exchanged.
“Oracle’s integration capabilities and the ability to add value on top of open source technologies, like Hyperledger Fabric, make Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service a strong contender in the enterprise,” said Accenture Managing Director David Treat, who leads his company’s global blockchain practice. Accenture is one of the world’s largest IT integrators.
“Through our initial tests, we were impressed with its pre-assembled approach, ease of integration through the REST APIs and strong focus on enterprise requirements.”
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