Despite the cryptocurrency market crash, Amazon has announced two new blockchain products at the re:Invent conference in Las Vegas this Wednesday (Nov. 28). The ecommerce Goliath will be offering Amazon Quantum Ledger Database and Amazon Managed Blockchain for developers that use its cloud-computing services.
The two services will allow Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers to deploy Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) quickly and easily. The plug-and-play blockchain solution automatically scales for users for a customized solution that can support thousands of applications and a high transaction rate.
It has been a struggle to integrate blockchain and cryptocurrency into daily life, but a megalith like Amazon adopting and offering viable blockchain-based solutions is viewed by many in the industry as a beacon of hope in dark times. There have been few tangible steps towards a more decentralized technological landscape and mostly just hype surrounding web 3.0. Some predict that blockchain will take nearly a decade before it is a ubiquitous part of daily life.
The new Amazon products will run using Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric. Like AWS cloud solutions the recently launched services will serve as an off-network database. Amazon has announced that,
“Managed Blockchain can replicate an immutable copy of your blockchain network activity into Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB), a fully managed ledger database. This allows you to easily analyze the network activity outside the network and gain insights into trends.”
It is important to note that the QLDB is not a blockchain platform itself but has been designed to work alongside the blockchain product to create an immutable history to trace data changes. The service is not fully available just yet. Companies looking to get their hands on these two products will have to sign up and wait for approval. If they are Amazon approved they can then create their own blockchain network and invite other AWS members or according to Amazon’s FAQ “create more members in [their] account to simulate a multi-member network.”
