Microsoft has introduced Project Bletchley which looks to bring blockchain technology to enterprises, governments and people.
It looks to develop an open, modular blockchain fabric powered by Azure which will offer Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) which is open and flexible for all platforms, partners and customer.
This service is enabled by Microsoft’s Azure and includes various elements that can improve enterprise blockchain architecture.
Blockchain as a Service was introduced by Microsoft in November last year and it envisions BaaS to become a standard way for making and verifying transactions and reducing the potential for fraud.
Blockchain service will record transactions and will not be present with just a single provider, but will be present all the parties involved in the transaction.
As a result, transactions will become much more transparent and open and they can be easily verified, as well. According to Microsoft, this will fundamentally change the way transactions and exchange of value and assets, enforcing contracts and sharing data across industries.
Project Bletchley will be addressing issues such as openness of the platform, integration of features like identity, key management, privacy, security, operations management and interoperability.
It will also address performance, scale, support and stability of the platform and will include consortium blockchains with members-only and permissioned networks for consortium members to execute contracts.
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Under Project Bletchley, Azure will provide a platform for blockchain where distributed applications are built and delivered. With Azure’s global availability, hybrid cloud capabilities, extensive compliance certification portfolio and enterprise-grade security can enable blockchain adoption in highly regulated industries like financial services, healthcare and government.
Azure will include blockchain protocols which support Unspent Transaction Output-based products (UTXO) like Hyperledger and SmartContract-based protocols like Ethereum. Microsoft claims that these new concepts will act as blockchain middleware and cryptlets.
Blockchain middleware will offer core cloud services including identity and operations management apart from data and intelligence services like analytics and machine learning. These technologies will provide secure and unchangeable services and can provide business intelligence reports to business leaders and regulators on demand.
Microsoft BizDev & Strategy, Cloud and Enterprise director Marley Gray said: "We’ve learned a lot about essential platform principles, features and capabilities that will enable enterprises to adopt blockchain.
"To address this, we’re introducing Project Bletchley, which outlines Microsoft’s vision for an open, modular blockchain fabric powered by Azure, and highlights new elements we believe are key in enterprise blockchain architecture."
