The growth of Blockchain technology has been quite interesting right from its beginning. It has conquered different genres of industries within a very small time, and the scope of Blockchain is only expected to grow in the future. More and more organizations are planning to harness the core power of Blockchain by integrating their business with Blockchain technology. Hence, a lot of IT and related companies have begun to come forward with the idea of providing the Blockchain as a Service to these companies so that they can utilize it to their maximum advantage.
What is BaaS or Blockchain as a Service?
Most of you might have heard of SaaS (Software as a Service). The concept of BaaS is also almost the same, except for that here the services provided will be related to Blockchain and related technologies.
BaaS allows the business customers out there to implement or integrate Blockchain-related functionalities within their present business environment. It will in return help them to make the best out of it in terms of business growth and profit-wise.
There are a lot of service providers right now which specializes in providing BaaS (Blockchain as a Service). It's such a milestone for the Blockchain field since a lot of people would be involved with the Blockchain-related applications and it becomes more common.
Some Premium Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) Service Providers
- IBM Blockchain Platform
- Microsoft Azure Blockchain
- Amazon’s Blockchain Templates
- Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service
- Baidu Blockchain Open Platform
IBM Blockchain is a public cloud service that helps to build Blockchain platforms. It was developed by the famous IT company, International Business Machine (IBM) in the year 2008.
Microsoft Azure Blockchain helps to create and develop high quality Blockchain applications. It was developed by Microsoft.
Amazon’s Blockchain Templates is a Blockchain platform provided by the online giant Amazon and helps you to create and deploy high quality Blockchain networks. They provide inbuilt Blockchain templates, so the customers do not have to spend time and energy on setting up all these things manually.
Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service was designed and is maintained by the famous computer software company Oracle Corporation. This Blockchain platform is famous for enabling to build high performance Blockchain applications.
Baidu is a famous Chinese search engine, and they do provide an open platform to help to develop high performance and user friendly Blockchain services.
Why Should Organizations Adopt Blockchain Technology?
The business firms right now have understood the need for adopting Blockchain Technology and are in search of the best BaaS service providers in the market (some of which are mentioned above).
The primary reason for most of the firms changing their shift towards Blockchain technology is that they provide a more secure, and safe operating environment, saving a lot of time and money. Added to it is the entry of building permissioned blockchains applications where it enhanced the overall performance and security of the whole network with its features. All these factors are very important for every company, be it a startup or a well established one.
The Working Model of BaaS
The basic thing you need to do for adopting the Blockchain technology is to find an IT partner who helps you to achieve the same. Sign up a contract or agreement with them, where the Blockchain partner will be mentioning their service fee and other terms and conditions for deploying the Blockchain Technology. They will also be providing the necessary infrastructure to develop the technology.
Different customers will have different requirements and your business IT partner will be configuring the Blockchain network with the help of a suitable Blockchain application platform.
The BaaS partner will also be supposed to record or store all the necessary and important artifacts and thus keep the process flow efficient. The contracts should also mention the activities such as bandwidth management, optimization of resources, incident management, system health monitoring, and security of the system.
Adopting the services of a BaaS partner makes it easy for the customers to concentrate on their core business rather than to get worried up on issues related to the Blockchain technology adoption, its performance etc. It in turn allows the businesses to adopt the real power of the Distributed Ledger technology in their business environments.
How To Choose the Right BaaS Partner?
Every business firm will be having unique needs. Hence, the backend services will also be differing accordingly. So your BaaS partner should also be providing the backend services like mainstream technologies by integrating popular services.
Your BaaS partner should be providing the proper data security, since all the data that application deals with should be safe and secure. It should be protected from vulnerabilities.
BaaS platforms offer cost effective solutions when compared to SaaS platforms, which is based on a subscription per year. As a customer, you should be checking whether they charge any hidden costs.
The business firms will already be running on multiple layers of processes, workflows, or data sources. So the shift towards a Blockchain based technology should not affect the already running system of networks or work processes.
Scalability is a very much essential factor for every application developed, since in the future there may arise a situation where the application should be altered.
Quick provisioning means the ability to deploy the Blockchain technology with the present system as fast as possible. Normally, BaaS companies have to deal with a lot of pressure to integrate it with the present system so quickly.
Cost Comparison between Self-Hosted Blockchains and BaaS Offering
It's a crystal clear fact that it is more economical to make use of the services of a BaaS partner rather than the self-hosted Blockchains. Incase of building self-hosted Blockchains you will need costly infrastructure, a team of highly skilled Programmers and much more. Whereas BaaS offering on the cloud helps you in saving a lot of time as well as money.
Some BaaS partners even do offer their services for an amount as low as 0.29 US Dollars per CPU hour, like IBM Blockchain Platform for IBM Cloud. In BaaS offerings the customer have to pay only for the units of services used.
Another leading service provider is the Amazon AWS Managed Blockchain service. They do charge their customers based on the factors like data transfer, network membership, peer node storage etc.
Incase of Microsoft’s Azure Blockchain service, the service rate is depended on an hourly basis, with a focus on provisioned transactions, validator nodes and the storage used by the customer (in GB s).
Some Major Advantages and Disadvantages of BaaS
Knowing the benefits and drawbacks of a system is always good before adopting technology, and hence below we intend to mention some of the pros as well as cons of the same!
Opting the services of BaaS provider helps the business clients to save both time as well as money, which are undoubtedly two important factors for your business growth.
Just imagine a business client recruiting a set of Blockchain developers and managing them to build a Blockchain application for their business requirements. It will take much time and will be an unnecessary financial burden for the company. Instead of opting the service of Blockchain Application Development company, which is well experienced in building the same will deliver you the best within much lesser time and cost!
The Blockchain as a Service providers takes care to deliver the best and completely user-friendly Blockchain platforms so that it doesn't require much technical expertise to operate one, only a basic understanding of software!
The platforms built will be easily customizable according to the requirements of clients as well it developed in a simple plug and play modules.
Adopting new and latest technologies will help the business customers to keep their staffs and resources optimized. The firms will be able to optimize both the number of staff and precious resources, which in turn brings more profit to the company by reducing the operating or running costs involved.
Blockchain Technology is yet to be popular among the public and not everyone will be having an in-depth knowledge of the concepts involved with the same. Most of the people are still unaware of the benefits and the vast future of blockchain technology. So it may fail if your company tries to adopt the technology by themselves. It's always advisable to consult the help of a well established BaaS provider.
Summing Up
Blockchain as a Service is one of the best services that you can avail for the overall growth of your business establishment, by making it advanced, up to date and future-ready! It helps you to save time, money, resources, infrastructure. Moreover, it makes your business more robust, safe, secure and efficient.
Apart from all this, Blockchain technology will help to make your business firm stand apart from other competitors and peers in the sector. Consult a well established and trusted BaaS partner who can guide you well in taking that giant technological leap!
