[ad_1]
JAXenter: Can blockchain improve cloud computing?
Casey Kuhlman: Blockchains honestly do not necessarily make cloud computing better. From the point of view of developer operations, blockchain nodes are simply another distributed system to be executed. However, they make business systems considerably better by allowing for an organization's data and event infrastructure to be authenticated by multiple companies that can (and must) be managed through enterprise firewalls. This allows access to the cluster to authenticated structured data that has been ordered by an ecosystem. This in turn reduces the need for external coordination web services.
JAXenter: For a while, you have maintained, maintained, used, updated and monitored blockchain networks in cloud-based systems. How does it work exactly?
Casey Kuhlman: On the one hand, it is no different from other distributed systems like etcd, zookeeper, elasticsearch, etc. A single blockchain node is simply a piece of software running in a cloud environment. On the other hand, there are significant differences in the way you need an operational approach with these software.
The biggest difference concerns the management of keys and the individual "identity" of a software (from the point of view of the network). In simple fault-tolerant systems designed to be housed and managed entirely within a single legal entity cloud environment, these systems should not be uniquely identified by public-private cryptographic keypairs. They can function effectively as systems without having to manage individual keys for a single software. Where SSL / TLS is integrated into a system within the cluster, operators can take advantage of cloud-based key management systems as an easy way to manage these keys.
However, these systems do not currently support cryptographic types used by blockchain systems (which are advanced elliptic curves such as ed22519 or secp2k1). This exposes to the operators of blockchain nodes the biggest difference in the execution of other distributed systems: that is, the need to manage the keys, mainly manually.
JAXenter: what were the immediate benefits? What lessons did you learn while experimenting with blockchain in the cloud?
The most important lesson that our company has learned has been to treat blockchain networks as not fundamentally different from other systems.
Casey Kuhlman: The immediate benefits of blockchain in the cloud are the same as other distributed systems: the ability to start, connect and scale systems with relative ease compared to on-prem or custom operating environments. The most important lesson that our company has learned has been to treat blockchain networks as not fundamentally different from other systems. If you largely process them the same and then build your continuous integration / implementation and other systems just like you would do for software based on previous generations of technology, then you have the ability to take advantage of all the nuances that cloud environments offer.
This perspective required that as a blockchain constructor, build our blockchain client in such a way that it works smoothly with existing operating systems like Prometheus and Helm.
JAXenter: Do Kubernetes and blockchain technology play well? When should they be used together?
Casey Kuhlman: We exclusively use Kubernetes to manage our blockchains inside Monax. We discover that with some modifications they work very well together. Kubernetes gives us the opportunity to abstract many operational considerations and also gives us the opportunity to operate deterministically on our nodes in such a way as to allow those nodes to be resilient within our cluster.
JAXenter: what are the key operational considerations that cluster administrators should keep in mind? How about some dos and what not to do?
Casey Kuhlman: There are three basic things that cluster administrators should keep in mind. First, consider your blockchain networks as similar as possible to other distributed systems that are running inside your cluster. Try to make sure that the blockchain client is compliant with the monitoring and alert system, that its logs can be managed by your log management system and that your access and entry systems are treated exactly as you would for other distributed systems.
Secondly, remember that, unlike other distributed systems, blockchain clients are not scaled horizontally. All information on the blockchain is – by default – stored redundantly on each complete node. It is important for cluster administrators to remember this because it affects storage allocations and how they deal with resizing.
Third, have a highly detailed plan on how to handle the key management and node identity problem mentioned above. This could be as simple as exploiting the secrets of Kubernetes or including more complex HSM solutions. Regardless of the solution, it is important to understand that a cloud-based KMS is unlikely to be able to handle the blockchain's operational needs.
SEE ALSO: simplify the development of Blockchain: Introduction to Hyperledger Burrow
JAXenter: what are your blockchain forecasts for 2019?
Casey Kuhlman: My expectations for 2019 are twofold. First, we will see the first of the online meta-blockchain protocols. These will be very important for a number of reasons. Currently, a single blockchain network is more like a cluster or extranet than the Internet, as it is basically a closed system. The imminent wave of meta-blockchain protocols will offer the ability to move authenticated information about data and events through single blockchain sovereigns. If we continue with the analogy, this will seem much more similar to the modern Internet, which is predominantly a layer of routing on top of a wide range of extranets that feeds what goes through the "Internet" tubes.
Secondly, we will see a greater convergence between the corporate blockchain sector of our sector and the public sector blockchain (cryptocurrency) of our sector. We are already seeing an increase in the use of public blockchains by companies and the increased dependence on authorized distributed blockchains (previously considered only business tools). My expectation is that this trend will continue and we will also see an increase in the cross-pollination of ideas between the two sectors of our industry. Toward the last part of the year, my expectation is that we will also begin to see the blockchain enterprise solution able to connect to public blockchain through some of the meta-blockchain protocols listed above.
Thank you!
