Azure Introduces Blockchain Services

Azure Blockchain services composed of partner-supplied components allow organizations to build distributed applications. Blockchains are a form of distributed ledger that enable transactions over peer-to-peer networks without a centralized clearinghouse. Microsoft is working with partners that offer a variety of tools and services to promote Azure as a hosting environment for applications that use a blockchain and leverage Azure services such as Machine Learning or Analytics. Although there is a growing interest in such applications for cryptocurrency and smart contracts, the underlying technology is complex, and it may be some time before it is adopted by large numbers of organizations.

What Is a Blockchain?

A blockchain is a time-stamped data structure that can contain an entire history of transactions for a system and cannot be repudiated. It is one of several key technologies that were originally developed to support the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, but it is now being extended to support a new class of distributed applications. Such distributed applications are based on cryptographic tokens and algorithms and a peer-to-peer network, so that the transaction history in the blockchain can be trusted without a centralized authority or clearinghouse approving or vouching for the transactions. In a given blockchain system, copies of the blockchain are replicated across nodes and are assured to be consistent through consensus agorithms.