Microsoft has released its serverless Azure Blockchain Development Kit, which promises to extend the capabilities of earlier blockchain-based development templates.
“Apps have been built for everything from democratizing supply chain financing in Nigeria to securing the food supply in the UK, but as patterns emerged across use cases, our teams identified new ways for Microsoft to help developers go farther, faster,” Marc Mercuri, Microsoft’s Block Engineering principal program manager wrote in a blog post.
“The Azure Blockchain Development Kit is the next step in our journey to make developing end to end blockchain applications accessible, fast, and affordable to anyone with an idea,” he said.
A serverless approach, according to Mercuri, would “reduce costs and management overhead.” Without a virtual machine (VM) server to deal with, the kit is made affordable and “within reach of every developer—from enthusiasts to ISVs [independent software vendors] to enterprises.”
Mercuri said the initial release will focus on a few key aspects: “connecting interfaces, integrating data and systems, and deploying smart contracts and blockchain networks.”
For connecting interfaces, the kit can be used for a variety of scenarios, such as inbound and outbound SMS, interactive voice response (IVR), Internet of Things (IoT) Hub and IoT Central, and bots and assistants.
For integration of data and systems, documents and media can be represented on the blockchain to ascertain their authenticity. The kit includes Azure Blockchain Workbench integration samples for legacy applications and protocols, data, software as a service (SaaS), and registries. The samples are to be extended for use with other blockchains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Corda.
Mercuri also said the kit will allow for guidance in delivering DevOps for smart contract and blockchain projects.
Last October, Microsoft Azure announced it was partnering with Nasdaq to create better payment mechanisms using blockchain technology. The software to be used is said to not require blockchain-specific know-how.
Last June, Microsoft agreed to acquire software development platform GitHub for $7.5 billion. Many developers reacted negatively, with the impression that this would mean a loss of developers’ independence.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
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Microsoft, through its Azure cloud computing service, will be collaborating with stock exchange company Nasdaq to provide clients with better payment mechanisms.
Microsoft Azure General Manager Matthew Kerner announced the partnership in a blog post, saying that “Azure will deliver highly secure interoperation and communication between the Nasdaq Financial Framework [NFF] core infrastructure, ecosystem middleware and customer technologies, using an innovative blockchain microservices suite to execute transactions and contracts.”
Nasdaq Senior Vice-President of Enterprise Architecture Tom Fay was quoted as saying, “[A]s more industries move towards capital markets technology and structures, we see the potential for blockchain to provide value in secure, frictionless and instantaneous matching of buyers and sellers.”
Kerner said that capital market organizations using applications based on the NFF platform will be able to do so “without the need for ledger-specific skills or knowledge, which is critical as the industry pursues new use cases for distributed ledger technology.”
Fay added, “Delegating to Microsoft—as a best of breed enterprise-quality partner and leader in the blockchain space—to handle all of the semantics of ledger communication, security, deployment and orchestration, allows us to focus on customer challenges and solutions at scale, rather than expending resources on building components that fall outside our core business.”
Kerner noted that it was Nasdaq that first offered the first-ever electronic stock exchange, back in 1971.
Nasdaq has reportedly been exploring a platform for the offering of security tokens, and is in talks with several blockchain firms on the matter. As further evidence of its commitment to blockchain ventures, the company has applied and been granted a patent for the providing of news through the technology, with each news item being recorded and scheduled for release at specific times.
Microsoft has partnered with professional service firm Ernst & Young in using blockchain to manage royalties and content rights. The platform will provide users with real-time access to data pertaining to the content they supply, built on the Quorum blockchain protocol and using Microsoft Azure cloud technology.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
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