IBM Confirms Upgrades to Its Blockchain Platform Multicloud, Available via Kubernetes

IBM revealed on this Tuesday that they are launching an upgraded version of its enterprise blockchain platform. At a press release, IBM’s CTO, Jerry Cuomo called their vision for the service as a fully-flexible blockchain platform, built around a well-managed open source distributed ledger technology, that can truly run in virtually any computing infrastructure.

The press released read:

“Clients can now benefit from the next generation of the IBM Blockchain Platform which has been rearchitected to support deployments via Kubernetes. This means you can now deploy the IBM Blockchain Platform on the infrastructure of your choosing. Deploy to public clouds like IBM Cloud, AWS, and Azure, or deploy on-premises in private clouds with secure infrastructures like LinuxOne. This hybrid and multicloud approach will allow blockchain networks to work effectively across multiple environments.”

The market is currently seen as highly-fractured due to the development of distributed ledger platforms, each of which is highly domain-specific, with a closed set of like-minded participants. The development is seemingly continuing down this path, which may lead to the platforms becoming more and more isolated in the future.

Even though IBM is an important contributor to open source Hyperledger Fabric. The version of Fabric presented in IBM’s Blockchain Platform is identical to the open source version, but IBM’s Blockchain Platform implements supplementary tooling. This tooling has a goal to make it easier to build on, like a trade finance solution or a supply chain solution.

Noticeably, there is also an extension to Visual Studio Code the popular software that developers use for coding. Cuomo says:

“Developers can now easily move from development to test to production from a single console. Included within the extension are code samples and tutorials, enabling any developer to easily become a blockchain developer. The IBM Blockchain Platform meets developers where they are, offering support for smart contracts to be written in JavaScript, Java, and Go languages.”

The company’s blockchain CTO Gari Singh perfectly summed up the objective of this project by saying:

“This vision is of blockchain at its best. It’s not one vendor controlling the software. It’s not one vendor controlling the cloud. It’s not one organization controlling everything. We can now actually leverage all the great things that are in Hypeledger Fabric, and we can support you wherever you need to be. And we can also help to support networks that want to work with IBM, but they have other members that don’t.”