More and more companies are dealing with Blockchain technology. This results in an increased need for supporting tools and structures. The software giant Oracle also uses its products and solutions to help large companies integrate Blockchain.

Using various technologies, such as the “Cloud Platform”, the company built the “Oracle Blockchain Platform”, which was released in July 2018. This platform is “fully managed” by Oracle and offered as a platform as a service (PaaS). Interested parties can subscribe to the service and build their Blockchain application with it.
Other software companies have also thrown their hats into the Blockchain ring with similar efforts. Amazon Web Services (AWS), for example, offers Amazon Managed Blockchain and Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) centralized and distributed options to customers.

Oracle’s Blockchain platform is “independent of industry” and “suitable for business”. This essentially means that the platform is scalable for large processes in many different industries. Oracle’s main focus is on enterprise customers, as these are traditionally Oracle’s customers. Oracle has very high requirements on scalability, performance and high availability as well as other similar characteristics. This is just like other products and services in the Oracle cloud.
Oracle has already seen a large number of customers developing Blockchain applications and trying to use the Blockchain service. Oracle’s Blockchain Service has customers from a variety of different industries who use the technology for applications such as supply chain and identity management.

Supply Chain at play

The interlocking of the Blockchain with the Supply Chain enables detailed tracking of all types of products and materials, providing more data and clarity throughout the process. This data can also be useful in verifying product authenticity.

CANO is a company that uses Oracle’s Blockchain platform for its Supply Chain. Retraced, a start-up company focused on transparency, uses the technology to make the CANO brand clearer and document the entire process in detail, from the materials used to the people manufacturing the products.

Blockchain for money transfers

Companies also use Oracle’s Blockchain solution for money transfers. The Arab Jordan Investment Bank (AJIB) proof-of-concept (PoC) for the cross-border exchange of money between two of its locations was conducted using Oracle’s Blockchain platform.
The PoC application of AJIB’s technology allowed cross-border payments to be transferred in the shortest possible time. Within two to three business days, the money could be transferred with lower costs, higher security and higher reliability. This met customer requirements for convenience, speed and ease of money transfer.

Public and Private Cloud

The Oracle Blockchain Cloud can be used as a public as well as a private cloud.
A public cloud is a cloud provided and managed by a cloud service provider (CSP). Customers have limited visibility into the architecture of the service and cannot specify security protocols or service offerings themselves. These are selected by the CSP for all customers.

A private cloud is a cloud deployment used exclusively for one customer. The customer can define everything about the cloud: infrastructure, security, service offerings and service level goals. This does not mean that the customer has to own or manage the cloud. It just means that it is exclusive and under his control.

Smart Contracts

VOQUZ IT Solutions as Oracle Partner uses the Blockchain Cloud to implement Smart Contracts for its customers.
By providing and executing so-called “Smart Contracts” the register (Ledger) is updated and queried. Thanks to integration with existing or new cloud-based or on-premise applications, data can be reliably shared with suppliers, banks and other business partners and trustworthy transactions can be carried out.

For example, Smart Contracts can do the following:
– Check the account balance before transferring money
– Check whether a sales order proposal meets certain standards.
– Transferring ownership of assets between parties after the conditions are met
– Match buy and sell orders or invoices and trigger payments.
– Update a proof of provenance to ensure that rights to a work of art or musical composition are protected.
– And much more

We will soon be reporting on Smart Contracts in more detail in another blog post.