We’re barely past Groundhog Day and 2018 already looks to be the year of blockchain as the underpinning ‘immutable ledger’ technology that forms the backbone of the new breed of cryptocurrencies. But while the markets chase after Bitcoin predictions and analysts enjoy telling how much much we would be worth if we’d put down $100 into various funds at the turn of this decade, the question for the technology industry is more engineering focused.
If we are going to live in a world of many blockchains (some of them serving cryptocurrencies, some of them acting as a new breed of global database networks for everything on the planet), then how will we interconnect all the blockchain DNA?
Decentralization & integration
One answer is decentralization. If we accept that blockchains are now verticalizing into different use case zones, it’s not surprising to see technology firms now attempting to give us platforms for building decentralized apps across different blockchains.
Another answer is integration. Self-styling itself a ‘smart blockchain platform’ company, UK-based Omnitude is a software company building connectors and tools to enable software application developers to marry blockchain and legacy systems together. Essentially the company makes middleware (software that connects other bits of software together) to bridge between different blockchain databases, as well as other existing enterprise systems and data repositories.
How does it work? Well, Omnitude uses Hyperledger at its heart to resolve issues across blockchains. Hyperledger is an umbrella project of open source blockchains and related tools, started in December 2015 by the Linux Foundation. Typical ‘issues’ with blockchains could very typically include ecommerce checks in areas such as identity protection, or perhaps supply chain inconsistencies for firms using blockchain technologies to underpin their online product and services offerings.
Connecting blockchain, backwards
Omnitude says its ambition for blockchain Nirvana (once we, as an industry, get all this stuff right) include: the creation of transparent and accountable manufacturing and supply chains; a reduction in ecommerce fraud; and the enablement of a single customer identity for use across connected ecommerce sites.
Below blockchain (so-to-speak) and back in the systems that firms will already have been using, the company also seeks to enable blockchain integration between ‘traditional’ enterprise systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Warehouse Management Systems (WMS).
According to Omnitude founder and CEO Chris Painter, “[Our] use of Hyperledger as a ‘permissioned’ blockchain protocol will enable business-to-consumer and business-to-business transactions. Unlike public blockchain protocols, it will be a permissioned network where nodes are run by known whitelisted organisations or individuals, with oversight (in this case) from the Omnitude Foundation."
In a bid to enhance security and transparency, the Omnitude blockchain will be periodically anchored to transactions on public blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The blockchain road ahead
Although Omnitude’s focus is biased to blockchain technologies deployed within the online retail ecommerce marketplace, there are interoperability lessons here that span any blockchain deployment.
We will now need to ask, who is going to perform blockchain connections? Is it the Chief Blockchain Officer (CBO) and is that even a formal job title designation yet? Answer: as noted in the body of this story, it is the software application developer programmer who will work with tools (like this one and others) to connect blockchains.
We also need to think about how we connect business focused ecommerce systems to blockchains. This will involve a good degree of liaison with e-merchants and all the members of the supply chain. As we travel down that digital supply chain we’re going to have to insist that anyone who wants to play in this stream of ebusiness will have to have embraced identity management technologies (think about firms like Okta and others) and authentication controls.
Going forward, we’re going to hear a lot about blockchain interoperability and connectivity alongside identity management and the need for information transparency in terms of the data and tools used. We’ve heard of mobile-first and cloud-native… next we’ll hear about blockchain-billable, well…. perhaps.
