Microsoft introduces new Bletchley project: modular blockchain architecture

Bletchley Comment : On June 15, Microsoft announced their vision to build an open blockchain platform, focusing on providing architectural blocks for the enterprise alliance blockchain system to form a large decentralized data alliance. Each node is a modular framework structure. The Bletchley project will allow alliance members to select the best components to build distributed application systems without having to worry about the specific underlying implementation details. The two main concepts of Bletchley are: blockchain middleware and cryptlets.

Translation: Nicole

On June 15, Microsoft announced their vision to build an open blockchain platform powered by its cloud computing platform Azure. Microsoft calls this initiative Project Bletchley, which focuses on providing architectural building blocks for the construction of enterprise consortium blockchain systems. This announcement comes after Microsoft announced the Azure Blockchain Service (Baas) in 2015.

Drawing on the needs of enterprise customers, including large financial services customers, Microsoft is building an open platform for recording transactions on a digital distributed ledger that is tamper-proof because the transactions are protected by encryption.

Marley Gray

To help drive consumer adoption of BaaS, Microsoft created Project Bletchley to address some of the architectural issues that consumers are trying to overcome. Marley Gray, Microsoft’s director of business development and strategy, explained:

We have a solid understanding of the key platform principles, capabilities, and features that can drive enterprise adoption of blockchain. To address these issues, we will introduce Project Bletchley, which outlines Microsoft's vision for a modular blockchain architecture powered by Azure and highlights key new elements in the enterprise blockchain architecture.

Topics of Microsoft's presentation include:

·The openness of the platform is a necessary condition.

We need to integrate authentication, key management, privacy, security, operational management, and interoperability capabilities.

Performance, scalability, support, and stability are critical.

Blockchain consortiums, which are permissioned networks that only allow registered members to execute contracts, are an ideal choice.

The two main concepts of Bletchley are: blockchain middleware and cryptlets.

The main functions that blockchain middleware will provide include:

· Authentication and certificate services, which leverage Azure Active Directory and key vaults to provide authentication, authorization, key issuance, storage access, and lifecycle management. Encryption services will provide partial payload, or blockchain transaction field-level encryption, which can ensure that data of specific transacting parties is visible only to those transacting parties.

Blockchain gateway services enable linked ledgers to communicate using internal ledger services.

Data services provide data services for off-chain data, allowing public key references on distributed file systems (IPFS, Storj), as well as providing analytical services such as machine learning and feedback to shareholders and regulators.

Management and operational tools enable the provisioning and management of distributed ledgers across enterprises.

In blockchain 1.0 and 2.0 implementations, an oracle (not to be confused with an oracle) service is required to integrate internal data/activity with the blockchain. Gray explains some of the concerns about this approach in the Bletchley Project white paper:

“There is no standard way to securely provide oracle data, and this can quickly become a contentious issue for parties to smart contracts. Using code or data outside of the smart contract or blockchain undermines trust barriers and threatens the reliability of independent transactions. Cryptlets provide this functionality.”

Cryptlets provide secure interoperability with other consumer open source or Azure services. Gray further explained:

“Cryptlets come into play when the additional information required, such as data or time, is sufficient to execute a transaction or contract. They will become a key building block of complex blockchain systems, making all the technology work in a secure and scalable way.”

Cryptlets can be written in any language and run in a trusted container such as a VM through a secure channel. Cryptlets can be run as a service in Azure, Azure Stack, AWS, Google, and other private cloud platforms. Cryptlets can also be used in smart contracts or UTXO systems through a CryptoDelegate or adapter.