Microsoft launches Project Bletchley to help companies build alliances

Rage Review : IT giant Microsoft has launched a new blockchain project - Bletchley Project, which uses BaaS, which is open to all platforms, partners and consumers and is flexible, to help enterprises create blockchain alliances. Because organizations such as R3CEV, GBC, and PTDL have proven that corporate alliances are conducive to achieving blockchain technology research and development results; and the size of distributed ledger technology functions is proportional to the number of technology adopters, it is necessary to develop a technology that can continue this corporate cooperation method. Microsoft has currently announced two new concepts of the project - blockchain middleware and encrypted bookmarks.

Translation: Annie_Xu

On June 15, Microsoft launched a new project to help more industry companies build alliances and better utilize blockchain technology.

Since the size of distributed ledger technology capabilities is proportional to the number of technology adopters, Microsoft hopes to use new tools to help build a cooperative network. So far, many blockchain alliances have carried out blockchain tests, the most well-known of which are R3CEV Alliance, Post-Trade Distributed Ledger Group (PTDL), and Dubai's Global Blockchain Council (GBC). Marley Gray, Microsoft's head of business development and strategy, said that a technology is needed to support the continuation of this partnership.

Marley Gray

“The purpose of Microsoft’s Project Bletchley is to develop a flexible Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) that is open to all platforms, partners and consumers.”

The project is open to multiple blockchain protocols, supporting UTXO protocols (unspent transaction output) such as Hyperledger, account-based protocols such as Ethereum, and will also support newly developed protocols.

Rooted in Azure

Named after Bletchley Park, where Alan Turing helped crack the German Enigma code during World War II, Gray said the Bletchley project is designed to build partnerships with existing members of Microsoft Azure's BaaS platform.

The Azure platform, released in November last year, already includes many open source tools developed by developers such as Tendermint and Augur, allowing users to build and experience sandbox environments, identify use cases, and discover the best ways to prototype.

The Bletchley project is positioned as an "open, modular blockchain framework" that interacts with identity and key management, can scale quickly, and helps build "members-only permissioned" consortium chains; Gray said it is an "ideal" choice for early adopters in various industries.

In a white paper released today, Gray described what he called an “Enterprise Consortium Node”:

"The modular framework allows the alliance to select the best components and build unique distributed applications without having to delve into the internal details."

Blockchain middleware and encrypted bookmarks

Microsoft unveiled parts of Project Bletchley, described as two “new” concepts: blockchain middleware and cryptlet.

Gray wrote:

“In addition to data and intelligent services – analytics and machine learning – blockchain middleware can provide core functions in cloud services, such as identity and operations management.”

The middleware is intended to help users take advantage of blockchain’s increased security and immutable transaction records, while also providing business intelligence reports for regulators and others.

Cryptographic bookmarks are only run when blockchain users need additional transaction information, such as the data and time required to execute a contract.

“Cryptobookmarks are a new building block of blockchain technology that supports interoperability and communication between the Microsoft Azure platform, system middleware and customer technologies.”

More information about Project Bletchley will be announced at Microsoft's World Wide Partner Conference in Toronto, Canada, July 12-16, and a pilot is expected to be launched in late summer.