I've been so entrenched in the world of cryptocurrencies that I'm confounded by how a Blockchain as a Service would work in the enterprise realm.
Both Microsoft and IBM have BaaS offerings, advertising that it will change the way your business functions.
I'd like to know, in general, how a blockchain system is run in the enterprise. Several questions come to mind:
- Who runs the nodes?
- How many miners are required? I'm assuming the hashpower your own enterprise systems could provide would not be substantial enough to have impenetrable security.
- Who provides the hashpower? The BaaS provider, or your own network of computers?
- Since you are the owner of this blockchain, how is this more secure than just a regular (encrypted) database with strict access control?
- What is the format of the data stored in these blockchains? Are they able to insert any custom data format and payload in each transaction, since it is a proprietary blockchain?
- Besides security in the form of immutability, what other benefits does a blockchain in the enterprise provide?