The more I read about blockchain and the more I talk to the CIOs, CTOs, developers and tech-savvy executives I call early adopters, the clearer is that everyone will need to make sense of the blockchain for their organization.
In the broadest sense, blockchain is a proxy for the genuine excitement of applications and platforms that cross business boundaries and support vast ecosystems. We call these collaborative ecosystem applications platforms. Marshall Van Alstyne explained the logic of these platforms in his book Platform Revolution. We should all be enthusiastic about these applications.
In the technological sense, blockchain is the key to creating a reliable and unalterable record of certain types of transactions. But the problem is that blockchain technology is not really necessary for all collaborative ecosystem applications.
So, how is it that each of us understands what really means blockchain for us? When is the excitement of the blockchain on a collaborative ecosystem application that does not really need blockchain? When do these apps really require blockchain? How can existing company data feed blockchain applications and vice versa?
As the beginning of this series of articles, I will focus on how Syncsort is answering these questions. Syncsort is a company that focuses on building the infrastructure to support the modern data supply chain. With products for data integration, data quality, capacity management, mainframe optimization, high availability and security, Syncsort is dedicated to the general proposition of its slogan: Advancing Data. On my podcast, I recently spoke with Syncsort & # 39; s CEO Josh Rogers is CTO Dr. Tend & uuml; Yogurt & ccedil; u. The way they make sense of the blockchain provides important lessons.
As Blockchain fits into Megatrends Syncsort is paying attention to
Syncsort has identified four megatrends that are paying close attention and ensuring that their business strategy is aligned. These are the cloud, data streaming and IoT, data science (which includes machine learning and artificial intelligence) and data governance. Yoğurt & ccedil; he told me that Syncsort considers blockchain, in many respects, as a sort of data governance mantle and that, as a result, the company is focusing on initial research and product development to support growing adoption and the expansion of the use of blockchain.
"We have some products that we will announce ready for blockchain and data governance will continue to be the main theme for us with blockchain because it is an evolving data and data architecture platform," he said. "If the data pipeline is moving like a combination of data lake and data bus, whether it's a combination of on-premise and cloud architectures, it's an opportunity for us to help our customers adopt these new ones. trends and platforms ".
Both Rogers and Yoğurt & ccedil see the greatest benefits of blockchain in applications involving manual confirmation or cross-border parts, or where automated tracking and validation is required for all parties. Blockchain helps eliminate the intermediary in many transactions and improves security by validating the authenticity of products and components and reducing counterfeiting. But applications and tools ready for blockchain are nascent and must mature so that the blockchain is widely adopted.
But Syncsort is preparing for this growing adoption because blockchain is applicable in so many sectors, especially those with supply chains, from food to car production, to cross-border trade. Blockchain can reduce the complexity of tracking these chains and simplify and consolidate contractual agreements between companies.
In addition, Syncsort is very focused on rapidly growing Big Iron to Big Data market software driven by the need for data-driven organizations to quickly extract value from critical data within the company, often shifting this data from traditional data systems like IBM Mainframe and midrange systems and thus integrating it seamlessly into a growing number of next-generation analytical platforms. The ability to access and integrate traditional data and blockchain for analysis will be part of this equation.
The greatest meaning of Blockchain
Given this context of what blockchain can do better, it is worth returning to the original question of when to use blockchain makes more sense. Rogers told me that part of the difficulty in answering the question is that blockchain technology is still at an early stage.
"It's very, very early," Rogers said. "It's a technology that I think will be incredibly relevant in the business, but I do not think people have understood all the key use cases for which blockchain will be relevant, but there are enough promises to indicate it's going to be important. and we are doing a lot of research in this space right now. "
Rogers added that Syncsort will engage in partnerships in the blockchain space that will allow the company to add value and begin to understand the key points of job integration with blockchain.
Both Rogers and Yoğurt & ccedil see blockchain as another platform on which Syncsort must adapt and work. "We consider blockchain as just another platform, and if you look at Syncsort, we help our customers advance data and help create that data path with the adoption of next-generation platforms," Yoğurt said. & ccedil. "We did it with big data and Hadoop. We have over 7,000 customers, including 84 from Fortune 100. We have been helping our customers on this journey and we continue to help them transition from existing platforms and existing data architectures. to next-generation architectures: we help them create centralized access to data, exploiting their existing sources of critical data as well as new data coming through the web, mobile devices, social networks and landing directly into a lake of data. & nbsp; We help with that journey, Blockchain is another platform. "
Yoğurt & ccedil, you also warned that blockchain is not yet completely ready for the business. He said that to perform transactions on blockchain, the data will need to be integrated into an existing transactional infrastructure, which requires a new set of tools and utilities to support such integration. Therefore, Syncsort focuses on creating a data pipeline that extracts useful data from the blockchain platform and delivers it wherever it is needed.
"Although the investment in blockchain is increasing, the adoption of technology is very slow, and there are a couple of reasons why," said Yoğurt & ccedil. "First, standardization is evolving, and nobody will start to populate the blockchain data from scratch.The corporate repositories already contain data on the resources they want to monitor or exchange and the participants in a particular supply chain, for example. & Nbsp; This data already exists somewhere, so it must be populated on the blockchain platform. "
But if Syncsort and other companies can understand these questions about data movements, the power of the blockchain could be harnessed further. So the use cases I mentioned earlier become very relevant and companies can adopt blockchain applications to address complex logistics or supply chain problems.
Syncsort's answer to Blockchain
For their part, Syncsort is preparing for expansion by investing in technology to move data in and out of the blockchain. Yoğurt & ccedil: you believe that the company is best placed to handle this data migration because of the existing skills that move data in and out of mainframes, Hadoop, cloud and on premise archives as well as distributed streaming.
But he also believes that Syncsort can play a role in blockchain-related governance issues. "When we talk about the participants in a particular blockchain domain, it's the address, the geocode and our data quality and our integrated portfolio in general fit this very well," Yoğurt said. ccedil. "We will look at how we can exploit some of the global data quality locators in the blockchain environment."
When data is placed in blockchain, the platform will likely have the same challenges as other platforms in ensuring that, once the data is in the data lake or warehouse, it can be extracted for use by applications. And this will lead to quality problems, synchronization and data integration, which will have to be supported by a product like Syncsort.
Yoğurt & ccedil; you also said that Syncsort intends to increase the number of security products in the company's portfolio that can take advantage of blockchain. As part of this, Syncsort will work with the Hyperledger project.
"We consider Hyperledger the most suitable project for companies," he said. "We have announced our participation in the projectand we are really excited about it. & nbsp; It's similar to how our Hadoop journey began in 2010. & nbsp; We started by contributing to the open source project. Being part of the community and collaborating allows us to evaluate the areas that matter to our corporate clients. We will work with the rest of the Hyperledger community. "
It is too early to learn about the complete form of the blockchain universe and how companies will use it in the future. But as technology continues to gain ground, it's worth analyzing the most promising use cases and the way companies like Syncsort respond as a way to predict what will happen next.
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The more I read about blockchain and the more I talk to the CIOs, CTOs, developers and tech-savvy executives I call early adopters, the clearer is that everyone will need to make sense of the blockchain for their organization.
In the broadest sense, blockchain is a proxy for the genuine excitement of applications and platforms that cross business boundaries and support vast ecosystems. We call these collaborative ecosystem applications platforms. Marshall Van Alstyne explained the logic of these platforms in his book Platform Revolution. We should all be enthusiastic about these applications.
In the technological sense, blockchain is the key to creating a reliable and unalterable record of certain types of transactions. But the problem is that blockchain technology is not really necessary for all collaborative ecosystem applications.
So, how is it that each of us understands what really means blockchain for us? When is the excitement of the blockchain on a collaborative ecosystem application that does not really need blockchain? When do these apps really require blockchain? How can existing company data feed blockchain applications and vice versa?
As the beginning of this series of articles, I will focus on how Syncsort is answering these questions. Syncsort is a company that focuses on building the infrastructure to support the modern data supply chain. With products for data integration, data quality, capacity management, mainframe optimization, high availability and security, Syncsort is dedicated to the general proposition of its slogan: Advancing Data. In my podcast, I recently spoke with Syncsort CEO Josh Rogers and CTO, Dr. Tendü Yoğurtçu. The way they make sense of the blockchain provides important lessons.
As Blockchain fits into Megatrends Syncsort is paying attention to
Syncsort has identified four megatrends that are paying close attention and ensuring that their business strategy is aligned. These are the cloud, data streaming and IoT, data science (which includes machine learning and artificial intelligence) and data governance. Yoğurtçu told me that Syncsort considers blockchain, in many respects, as a sort of data governance mantle and that, as a result, the company is focusing on initial research and product development to support growing adoption. and the expansion of the use of blockchain.
"We have some products that we will announce ready for blockchain and data governance will continue to be the main theme for us with blockchain because it is an evolving data and data architecture platform," he said. "If the data pipeline is moving like a combination of data lake and data bus, whether it's a combination of on-premise and cloud architectures, it's an opportunity for us to help our customers adopt these new ones. trends and platforms ".
Both Rogers and Yoğurtçu see the greatest benefits of blockchain in applications where manual confirmations or cross-border parts are involved, or where automatic tracking and validation is required that is visible to all parties. Blockchain helps eliminate the intermediary in many transactions and improves security by validating the authenticity of products and components and reducing counterfeiting. But applications and tools ready for blockchain are nascent and must mature so that the blockchain is widely adopted.
But Syncsort is preparing for this growing adoption because blockchain is applicable in so many sectors, especially those with supply chains, from food to car production, to cross-border trade. Blockchain can reduce the complexity of tracking these chains and simplify and consolidate contractual agreements between companies.
In addition, Syncsort is very focused on rapidly growing Big Iron to Big Data market software driven by the need for data-driven organizations to quickly extract value from critical data within the company, often shifting this data from traditional data systems like IBM Mainframe and midrange systems and thus integrating it seamlessly into a growing number of next-generation analytical platforms. The ability to access and integrate traditional data and blockchain for analysis will be part of this equation.
The greatest meaning of Blockchain
Given this context of what blockchain can do better, it is worth returning to the original question of when to use blockchain makes more sense. Rogers told me that part of the difficulty in answering the question is that blockchain technology is still at an early stage.
"It's very, very early," Rogers said. "It's a technology that I think will be incredibly relevant in the business, but I do not think people have understood all the key use cases for which blockchain will be relevant, but there are enough promises to indicate it's going to be important. and we are doing a lot of research in this space right now. "
Rogers added that Syncsort will engage in partnerships in the blockchain space that will allow the company to add value and begin to understand the key points of job integration with blockchain.
Both Rogers and Yoğurtçu see blockchain as another platform on which Syncsort must adapt and work. "We consider blockchain just another platform, and if you look at Syncsort, we're helping our customers move data forward and helping create that data path with the adoption of next-generation platforms," Yoğurtçu said. . "We did it with big data and Hadoop, we have over 7,000 customers, including 84 from Fortune 100. We've been helping our customers on this journey and we continue to help them transition from existing platforms and existing data architectures to Next Generation: We help them create centralized access to data, leveraging their existing critical data sources as well as new data coming through the web, mobile devices, social networks and landing directly into a lake of data.We help with that journey.Platchain is another platform. "
Yoğurtçu also warned that blockchain is not yet fully prepared for the business. He said that to perform transactions on blockchain, the data will need to be integrated into an existing transactional infrastructure, which requires a new set of tools and utilities to support such integration. Therefore, Syncsort focuses on creating a data pipeline that extracts useful data from the blockchain platform and delivers it wherever it is needed.
"Although the investment in blockchain is increasing, the adoption of technology is very slow and there are a couple of reasons why," said Yoğurtçu. "First, standardization is evolving, and nobody will start to populate the blockchain data from scratch.The corporate repositories already contain data on the resources they want to monitor or exchange and the participants in a particular supply chain, for example. already somewhere, so it must be populated on the blockchain platform. "
But if Syncsort and other companies can understand these questions about data movements, the power of the blockchain could be harnessed further. So the use cases I mentioned earlier become very relevant and companies can adopt blockchain applications to address complex logistics or supply chain problems.
Syncsort's answer to Blockchain
For their part, Syncsort is preparing for expansion by investing in technology to move data in and out of the blockchain. Yoğurtçu said he believes the company is best placed to handle this data migration due to existing skills that move data in and out of mainframes, Hadoop, cloud and premature data stores as well as platforms of distributed streaming.
But he also believes that Syncsort can play a role in blockchain-related governance issues. "When we talk about the participants in a particular blockchain domain, it's the address, the geocode and our data quality and our integrated portfolio fits this very well," Yoğurtçu said. "We will look at how we can exploit some of the global data quality locators in the blockchain environment."
When data is placed in blockchain, the platform will likely have the same challenges as other platforms in ensuring that, once the data is in the data lake or warehouse, it can be extracted for use by applications. And this will lead to quality problems, synchronization and data integration, which will have to be supported by a product like Syncsort.
Yoğurtçu also said that Syncsort intends to increase the number of security products in the company's portfolio that can exploit blockchain. As part of this, Syncsort will work with the Hyperledger project.
"We consider Hyperledger the most suitable project for companies," he said. "We have announced our participation in the project and are very excited about it, similar to how our Hadoop journey began in 2010. We started contributing to the open source project, being part of the community and collaborating allows us to evaluate the areas that matter our corporate customers, we will work with the rest of the Hyperledger community. "
It is too early to learn about the complete form of the blockchain universe and how companies will use it in the future. But as technology continues to gain ground, it's worth analyzing the most promising use cases and the way companies like Syncsort respond as a way to predict what will happen next.