Speaker 1: Welcome back to the deep Dive. We're here again to
Speaker 1: sift through the information, cut out the noise, and really
Speaker 1: get to the core insights for you. Today we're jumping
Speaker 1: into something pretty significant enterprise blockchain solutions, specifically on AWS.
Speaker 1: And Okay, let's just be clear upfront, this isn't really
Speaker 1: about bitcoin speculation or anything like that. We're looking at
Speaker 1: a much deeper shift, sort of a fundamental change in
Speaker 1: how businesses can operate, how they track things, how they
Speaker 1: well established trust online. Our goal here is to give
Speaker 1: you that clear understanding, that shortcut to knowing what's important
Speaker 1: in this pretty complex area exactly.
Speaker 2: And we've gathered quite a bit articles, white papers, AWS
Speaker 2: docs trying to cover it all, from you know, the
Speaker 2: basic blockchain ideas right through to the specific AWS tools
Speaker 2: and how companies are actually using this stuff. By the end,
Speaker 2: you should have a really solid grasp of why this matters,
Speaker 2: not just for big tech, but potentially well for your
Speaker 2: own context.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's start right at the beginning the why
Speaker 1: why blockchain? Now, we've had databases and web systems for ages, right,
Speaker 1: what problems are we actually trying to solve here? Well,
Speaker 1: I think the traditional systems web two point zero centralized stuff.
Speaker 1: They have some built in challenges like trust, can you
Speaker 1: always trust the data from single source, especially if they
Speaker 1: control it completely, And tracking things accurately. Think about high
Speaker 1: value goods or a complex supply chain. Knowing exactly where
Speaker 1: something came from it's providence that can be surprisingly hard.
Speaker 1: Or even tracking something simple like a package of food
Speaker 1: that needs to stay cold, getting real time, verifiable data
Speaker 1: on its journey often not possible. And then there's the
Speaker 1: whole issue of middleman. They add costs, they add complexity.
Speaker 1: You hear about, say a coffee farmer getting just pennies
Speaker 1: on the dollar for beans you pay a premium for.
Speaker 1: Blockchain offers a way to tackle that inefficiency, and.
Speaker 2: That's where blockchain kind of steps in. It's fundamentally a
Speaker 2: different model. Think peer to peer network, shared information, secured
Speaker 2: everyone agrees, no central boss. At its heart, it's a
Speaker 2: distributed ledger, it's a mutable meaning tamper proof, it's secured
Speaker 2: using critography, and it's decentralized. Let's maybe unpack those a bit.
Speaker 2: So first up, cryptographically secure transactions get bundled into blocks.
Speaker 2: These blocks are linked chained together using cryptographic hashes like
Speaker 2: SAHA two fifty six is a common one. These hashes
Speaker 2: are incredibly sensitive. Change one tiny bit of data, the
Speaker 2: hash totally changes, so any tampering is instantly obvious. That's
Speaker 2: the chain part. It makes the history secure. Second, and
Speaker 2: this is like a huge deal for trust immutability. Once
Speaker 2: data is written to the blockchain agreed upon, it basically
Speaker 2: can't be changed or deleded. It's a tend only if
Speaker 2: you need to make an update, you don't overwrite the
Speaker 2: old record. You add a new transaction in a new
Speaker 2: block that shows the change. The whole history stays there,
Speaker 2: fully traceable, critical for audits.
Speaker 1: Okay. Wait, so if it's immutable, what if someone makes
Speaker 1: a mistake, is it just stuck there forever wrong? Ah?
Speaker 2: Good question. That's a common point of confusion. Immutable doesn't
Speaker 2: mean you can't correct errors. It just means you can't
Speaker 2: secretly erase them. You simply add a new transaction. That
Speaker 2: six is the mistake. The original incorrect entry is still
Speaker 2: there on the chain, but the history clearly shows it
Speaker 2: was corrected later. No hiding things, got it?
Speaker 1: Okay? Makes sense?
Speaker 2: Then? Third, it's a distributed ledger, unlike your typical company database.
Speaker 2: Stored in one place, the blockchain ledger is copied and
Speaker 2: spread across many computers, many participants, often globally, everyone holds
Speaker 2: an identical synchronized copy. And fourth tied to that is decentralization.
Speaker 2: No single company or person owns or controls the whole network.
Speaker 2: That removes single points of failure, gives control back to
Speaker 2: the participants. And what really kicked things up a notch.
Speaker 2: The second generational blockchain was smart contracts. These are basically
Speaker 2: bits of code programs that live on the blockchain. They
Speaker 2: contain business logic rules and they automatically execute when the
Speaker 2: conditions in the code are met. Think of it like
Speaker 2: a self enforcing digital agreement on ethereum. You'd probably write
Speaker 2: these in solidity on hyper ledger fabric. They call it
Speaker 2: chain code, often written in Go, no JS or Java.
Speaker 2: They automate process is between parties.
Speaker 1: That's a big leap from just signing a paper contract. So, okay,
Speaker 1: how does a transaction actually happen on the network with
Speaker 1: all these pieces?
Speaker 2: Right? So, you want to make a transaction, you create
Speaker 2: it digitally, sign it to prove its yours, and then
Speaker 2: broadcast it to the network. Nodes on the network minors
Speaker 2: in some systems just validating peers and others. They pick
Speaker 2: it up, they check it against the rules, run any
Speaker 2: relevant smart contracts. Once enough of them agree it's valid,
Speaker 2: that's the consensus part. It gets bundled into a new block.
Speaker 2: That block gets added to the chain, and then that
Speaker 2: new chain gets sent out to everybody, so all ledgers
Speaker 2: are updated. It's how they all stay in sync and
Speaker 2: trust the result.
Speaker 1: You mentioned consensus there and earlier things like proof of work.
Speaker 1: Are there different ways they reach that agreement? What are
Speaker 1: the trade offs?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, Consensus mechanisms are key. Proof of work powder
Speaker 2: W like bitcorn used involves solving really hard computational puzzles,
Speaker 2: super secure but very energy intensive and slow. Then you
Speaker 2: have proof of steak pos. This is what newer e
Speaker 2: theoryum uses. It's more efficient. Participants lock up cryptos collateral
Speaker 2: sort of like a security deposit to get a chance
Speaker 2: of validate transactions, better performance, less energy, and in many
Speaker 2: private enterprise settings you see proof of authority POA. Here,
Speaker 2: transactions are validated by a set of pre approved trusted authorities.
Speaker 2: Their identity and reputation are of the stake. It's much
Speaker 2: faster because trust is based on identity, but it's more centralized, okay.
Speaker 1: And that distinction seems really important for businesses. The difference
Speaker 1: between say a public blockchain like Bitcoin or the main
Speaker 1: Ethereum network where anyone can join, look at the data,
Speaker 1: submit transactions. But yeah, they can be slow, maybe not
Speaker 1: scalable enough, and privacy is limited. That's often not ideal
Speaker 1: for corporate data, which leads us to private and permission blockchains.
Speaker 1: These are more controlled environments. Only known, authorized participants can join,
Speaker 1: transact and see certain data. This gives businesses the privacy,
Speaker 1: the confidentiality, and often much better performance they need. Hyper
Speaker 1: Ledger fabric, which we'll get to, is a really good
Speaker 1: example here. So when you boil it all down, what
Speaker 1: this really means for you, the listener, is that we're
Speaker 1: moving towards systems where trust isn't just assumed or outsourced
Speaker 1: to an intermediary, it's built right into the digital infrastructure.
Speaker 1: This opens up possibilities for transparency and inefficiency that honestly
Speaker 1: were just really difficult or impossible before. Okay, But if
Speaker 1: blockchain is this powerful, this transformative, why isn't every company
Speaker 1: using it for everything already? What's the hold up? Well?
Speaker 2: A big part of it is complexity historically setting up
Speaker 2: and managing your own blockchain network. It's not trivial. You've
Speaker 2: got hardware provisioning, software installation, managing security certificates, databases, networking scaling.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of manual work, error prone, and it
Speaker 2: takes specialized skills right.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a barrier to entry for many.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and that is where AWS comes into play, aiming
Speaker 2: to simplify that whole process. They've got a suite of services.
Speaker 2: The main one is probably Amazon Managed Blockchain. It's a
Speaker 2: fully managed service. It takes care all at infrastructure, a
Speaker 2: headache setting up nodes, managing certificates, scaling for frameworks like
Speaker 2: hyperl Fabric and also Ethereum, so you get to focus
Speaker 2: on building your actual application, your business logic, not wrestling
Speaker 2: with the underlying plumbing.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it handles the setup and maintenance precisely.
Speaker 2: Then they also have AWS Blockchain templates. These are more
Speaker 2: like quick start guides. They use automation to quickly deploy
Speaker 2: the necessary AWS resources, networks, security groups, compute instances to
Speaker 2: get a private Ethereum or hyper ledguer Fabric network up
Speaker 2: and running fast. A good starting point. And finally, there's
Speaker 2: the AWS Blockchain Partners Network. This is a whole ecosystem
Speaker 2: of consulting firms and tech companies that have expertise using
Speaker 2: AWS to build blockchain solutions, so you can find validated
Speaker 2: solutions or get expert help.
Speaker 1: Interesting, So AWS essentially lowering the barrier. They're providing this
Speaker 1: sort of shortcut for businesses to tap into blockchains benefits
Speaker 1: without getting bogged down and managing the complex infrastructure themselves
Speaker 1: makes it way more accessible. Now let's take into something
Speaker 1: slightly different but related. A key point is it not
Speaker 1: every situation eating an immutable record also needs decentralization across
Speaker 1: multiple organizations. Sometimes you need that tamper proof history but
Speaker 1: within your own organization. And this brings us to Amazon
Speaker 1: Quantum Letter Database or QLDB.
Speaker 2: Yeah. QLDB is fascinating because it solves a very specific
Speaker 2: but very common enterprise need a verifiable, complete and immutable
Speaker 2: log of changes for a centralized system of record. Think
Speaker 2: about a bank's internal transaction history or maybe HR records
Speaker 2: or system locks. They need absolute certainty that the history
Speaker 2: hasn't been tampered with for audits for compliance, but they
Speaker 2: don't need and probably don't want multiple competing banks or
Speaker 2: entities involved in managing that specific internal data. Using a
Speaker 2: full decentralized blockchain for that would just add complexity and
Speaker 2: slow things down unnecessarily.
Speaker 1: So it's like blockchains and mutability, but without the distributed
Speaker 1: network part exactly.
Speaker 2: QLDB is a fully managed centralized database, but it's designed
Speaker 2: as a ledger. It keeps two things, the current state
Speaker 2: of your data like a normal database, and a separate
Speaker 2: append only journal. This journal records every single change, every
Speaker 2: transaction forever, has a cryptographically linked chain of blocks, just
Speaker 2: like a blockchain. This journal is immutable. You can't delete
Speaker 2: from it, you can't modify past entries.
Speaker 1: Wow. So it's like a perfect unchangeable audit trail built
Speaker 1: right in.
Speaker 2: Precisely, and the benefits are significant. It's cryptographically verifiable, you
Speaker 2: can prove the integrity of the history. It's immutable and transparent,
Speaker 2: highly scalable, easy to use, it's serverless, and critically because
Speaker 2: it's centralized, no complex consensus needed, so it offers really
Speaker 2: high performance, much faster than decentralized blockchains. Plus, it supports
Speaker 2: SQL like queries and has ACD properties, which is vital
Speaker 2: for transactional data.
Speaker 1: Can you give us an example of where you'd use QLDB.
Speaker 2: Sure, imagine building that internal banking system for auditing, tracking
Speaker 2: customer accounts, loans, transactions. Auditors need to trust that history
Speaker 2: with QLDB. They can use the journal and something called
Speaker 2: a QLDB digest basically a hash summary of the entire
Speaker 2: history to mathematically verify that no record has been altered, added,
Speaker 2: sneakily or deleted from the history. Complete transparency for auditors.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a real aha moment for me. QLDV shows
Speaker 1: that blockchain isn't the only answer for immutability. Sometimes a
Speaker 1: centralized verifiable ledger is actually the better fit, giving you
Speaker 1: trust without the overhead of decentralization. It's about picking the
Speaker 1: right tool exactly right.
Speaker 2: Choose the tech that solves the actual problem.
Speaker 1: All right, let's pivot back to the decentralized world, specifically
Speaker 1: to one of the major frameworks AWS supports, one built
Speaker 1: explicitly for enterprise needs, hyper ledger Fabric.
Speaker 2: Yes, hyper ledger Fabric is definitely a key player in
Speaker 2: the enterprise space. It's open source, hosted by the Lenux Foundation,
Speaker 2: and crucially, it's a permissioned framework. This means it's designed
Speaker 2: for known participants. You need a verified identity, usually via
Speaker 2: a certificate authority to even join the network. That gives
Speaker 2: businesses the control they need over who.
Speaker 1: Participates, control and privacy, I imagine absolutely.
Speaker 2: Fabric has a powerful feature called channels. These allow you
Speaker 2: to create private subnetworks within the main blockchain network. So
Speaker 2: let's say you're collaborating with two different suppliers on the
Speaker 2: same blockchain. You can have a private channel with supplier
Speaker 2: A and a separate private channel with supplier B. They
Speaker 2: only see the transactions and data relevant to their channel,
Speaker 2: ensuring privacy and confidentiality even among competitors on the same network.
Speaker 1: That sounds incredibly useful for business consortia it is.
Speaker 2: Fabric also has a modular architecture. You can plug in
Speaker 2: different components for things like consensus, identity management, etc. It's flexible.
Speaker 2: It's also known for high transaction throughput and performance, partly
Speaker 2: because it separates different feeses of the transaction process and
Speaker 2: a big plus for developers. You write the smart contracts
Speaker 2: the chain code in common general purpose languages like Java,
Speaker 2: Go or no JS. No need to learn a niche
Speaker 2: blockchain language.
Speaker 1: And the killer future for many businesses, probably.
Speaker 2: That it requires no cryptocurrency. Unlike public chains like Bitcoin
Speaker 2: or Ethereum, where you need native crypto for fees or incentives,
Speaker 2: fabric networks operate without one. This removed a huge layer
Speaker 2: of complexity, volatility, and regulatory concern for many enterprises. The
Speaker 2: basic flow is a client application sends a transaction proposal.
Speaker 2: Certain pre defined peers called endorsing peers, check it and
Speaker 2: simulate the chain code. If it's valid, they endorse it.
Speaker 2: The endorsed transaction then goes to an ordering service, which
Speaker 2: sequences transactions into blocks. These blocks are then sent to
Speaker 2: all the committing peers, who validate them again and finally
Speaker 2: write them to their copy of the ledger.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's make this concrete a use case. How about
Speaker 1: the healthcare supply chain that seems complex and high stakes.
Speaker 2: Perfect example, think about pharmaceuticals or medical devices. You have manufacturers, distributors, hospitals, pharmacies,
Speaker 2: a complex web. Current challenges are huge verifying everyone's identity KYC,
Speaker 2: tracking the exact origin and handling of sensitive products, provenance,
Speaker 2: loads of paperwork, ownership disputes if something goes wrong, high costs,
Speaker 2: and sadly, the risk of counterfeit drugs entering the chain.
Speaker 1: How does Fabric help there.
Speaker 2: Well, it provides that end to end traceability. Every movement,
Speaker 2: every handover can be recorded immutably. Auditing becomes much simpler
Speaker 2: and more reliable. Smart contracts can automate agreements like payment,
Speaker 2: release upon verified delivery and temperature checks. Consensus builds trust
Speaker 2: between all parties. The permission nature and channels provide the
Speaker 2: necessary privacy for sensitive health data. It offers security and
Speaker 2: decentralization where needed, and you can easily onboard new participants
Speaker 2: like a new distributor, giving them access to the relevant
Speaker 2: parts of the shared trusted ledger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can really see how Fabric specific features address
Speaker 1: those real world enterprise pain points, control, privacy, performance, no
Speaker 1: crypto needed, It's about building efficient trusted business networks. Okay,
Speaker 1: shifting gears one last time to the other major framework,
Speaker 1: AWS supports the one often called the World Computer.
Speaker 2: Right Ethereum. While Fabric is very enterprise focused, Ethereum started
Speaker 2: with a broader vision, a general purpose platform for decentralized
Speaker 2: applications or DAPs. It aimed to go way beyond Bitcoin's
Speaker 2: financial focus. Key to Ethereum is the Ethereum Virtual machine
Speaker 2: or EVM. Think of it as a global processor for
Speaker 2: the Ethereum network. It runs the smart contract code and
Speaker 2: ensures every node on the network calculates the same result
Speaker 2: for every transaction, maintaining a consistent state, and.
Speaker 1: It uses accounts similar to banks sort of.
Speaker 2: There are two main types. Externally owned accounts eoas are
Speaker 2: what users like you and me would have, controlled by
Speaker 2: private keys. Then there are contract accounts, which are actually
Speaker 2: controlled by the code of a smart contract itself. To
Speaker 2: do anything on Ethereum, send funds. Run a contract, you
Speaker 2: need ether ether, which is the network's cryptocurrency. You use
Speaker 2: the Ether to pay for gas. Gas is an a
Speaker 2: currency itself. It's a unit measuring the computational work needed
Speaker 2: for a transaction or contract execution. More complex operations cost
Speaker 2: more gas.
Speaker 1: And the smart contracts themselves still send.
Speaker 2: They're those self executing programs on Ethereum. They're primarily written
Speaker 2: in a language called Solidity, then compiled down to bytecode
Speaker 2: that the EVM can understand. Developers often use tools like
Speaker 2: the remix online ide to write and test them. Now.
Speaker 1: Ethereum is known for its big public network main net,
Speaker 1: but are there other options?
Speaker 2: Yes, there are several test nets like Cipolia or gorely currently,
Speaker 2: which are public testing grounds where developers can deploy and
Speaker 2: test apps without spending real ether. And importantly, for some
Speaker 2: enterprise uses, you can absolutely create private and permissioned Ethereum networks.
Speaker 2: These give you a controlled environment, but still let you
Speaker 2: leverage Ethereum's powerful smart contract engine and tooling aws, for instance,
Speaker 2: makes it easy to spin these up.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's ground this with an example. How about asset tracking,
Speaker 1: but maybe using Ethereum this time.
Speaker 2: Sure, Let's take vehicle tracking cars moving from manufacturer to
Speaker 2: shipper to dealer to buyer. The same challenges exist verifying parties,
Speaker 2: proving origin, managing agreements, handling ownership transfer, potential damage claims, costs.
Speaker 2: A private Ethereum network could offer similar benefits to fabric
Speaker 2: here traceability, consensus automation via smart contracts. Imagine a digital
Speaker 2: title transferring automatically upon final payment, security decentralization. The smart
Speaker 2: contract could define the vehicle's state, ownership and the rules
Speaker 2: for transferring it. Each step is a transaction recorded on
Speaker 2: the chain. Developers building this might use tools like ganash
Speaker 2: for a local test blockchain, the Truffle suite to manage, compiling, testing,
Speaker 2: and deploying their solidity contracts, and maybe web three, dot
Speaker 2: JS or Ether's js JavaScript libraries to let a web
Speaker 2: application interact with the Ethereum network.
Speaker 1: So wrapping up Ethereum, what's the key takeaway? It feels
Speaker 1: like it offers this really powerful programmable layer for building
Speaker 1: entirely new kinds of applications where trust is inherent baked
Speaker 1: right in.
Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it. It enables decentralized
Speaker 2: applications that can transform processes involving asset ownership, complex multi
Speaker 2: party workflows, supply chains, potentially creating much more direct and
Speaker 2: transparent interactions by minimizing intermediaries.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, we have covered a lot of ground today,
Speaker 1: from the basic why of blockchain, those core concepts like mutability, consensus,
Speaker 1: smart contracts, then diving into how AWS makes it accessible
Speaker 1: with managed blockchain and templates. We looked at the specific
Speaker 1: case for a centralized ledger with QLDB, the enterprise powerhouse
Speaker 1: hyper Ledger fabric, and finally the decentralized application platform of Ethereum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been quite the journey, and I think the
Speaker 2: main thing that emerges is that these technologies whether it's
Speaker 2: a centralized ledger like QLDB focused on internal auditibility, or
Speaker 2: decentralized network like Fabric or Ethereum built for collaboration cross organizations. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they all offer compelling ways to solve fundamental business problems
Speaker 2: around trust, transparency, and efficiency. They provide tools to build
Speaker 2: systems where you can verify, not just trust.
Speaker 1: That definitely leaves us with something to think about and
Speaker 1: maybe a final question for you listening right now, think
Speaker 1: about your own world, your work, maybe even personal admin.
Speaker 1: Where do you see a process burdened by lack of trust,
Speaker 1: too many intermediaries, or just inefficiency. Where could a verifiable,
Speaker 1: immutable ledger, maybe centralized, maybe decentralized, make a real difference.
Speaker 1: What friction points could be smoothed out, what could be revolutionized?
Speaker 2: Next?
Speaker 1: Lots to consider. Thanks for joining us on this deep dive.
Speaker 1: We'll catch you next time with more insights from the source.