In an era where digital security is paramount, blockchain technology emerges as a transformative force for cloud services. Offering unparalleled transparency, immutability, and trust, blockchain stands to revolutionize how we secure our data and transactions in the cloud. For our clients and partners, this means an elevated layer of security through immutable audit trails, guaranteed data integrity, and innovative approaches to identity management. By decentralizing security, blockchain technology not only enhances protection but also redefines trust in the digital space.  

As we navigate this journey together, the integration of blockchain into cloud services promises to fortify our digital defenses and pave the way for a more secure and trustworthy digital ecosystem. 

Blockchain: a game-changer for healthcare and finance sectors 

Widely known as a disruptive technology with the potential to transform many industries, blockchain has evolved much over the years. In the early days, blockchain was primarily used for cryptocurrency transactions. Today, blockchain is being used by a multitude of businesses and organizations for a broad spectrum of applications including supply chain management, healthcare and finance. The global blockchain market is expected to grow at a compound rate (CAGR) of 87.7% from 2023 to 2030¹. The growth of blockchain is propelled by a number of factors including: 

• Rising demand for secure and transparent transactions 
• Need for a more efficient way to track and manage data 
• Potential for blockchain to disrupt traditional industries 

Cloud computing can offer the foundational infrastructure that is needed to support blockchain applications. Here, we explore the challenges that partners encounter during the deployment of blockchain solutions for their clients, and how OVHcloud can help partners to overcome these challenges. 

Decentralization: enhancing your blockchain technology 

Decentralization is a key feature of blockchain technology and refers to the distribution of nodes across a network. However, any hosted node can be vulnerable to attacks from malicious actors targeting any hosting service, making it difficult to defend. Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, a common security threat in blockchain that have caused significant disruption to blockchain networks, can disrupt and prevent legitimate users from conducting transactions leading to financial losses for businesses that rely on its functionality.  

By default, all OVHcloud products are delivered with Anti-DDoS protection. We operate our own large distributed global network that provides enough throughput to mitigate attacks, no matter where they originate. Partners can also customize protection rules via the control panel if they have additional requirements. As such, OVHcloud’s partners are reassured by our commitment to ensure optimal security for their infrastructure, hosted with OVHcloud. 

In addition, the decentralised nature of blockchain networks makes them reliant on multi-locality of a cloud service provider. With OVHcloud’s 37 datacenters globally, partners can leverage on OVHcloud solutions to scale their resources as needed when their network grows, without having to worry about managing the hardware. Blockchain platforms are designed to be scalable, meaning they can be easily expanded to accommodate more nodes. We help partners to quickly adapt their infrastructure to meet changing demand. 

Costs: how to make the most out of OVHcloud best price-performance ratio? 

The cost of setting up and maintaining a blockchain network can be significant, and typically includes cost of blockchain application development, hardware and initial node deployment. Ongoing maintenance costs involve hardware maintenance, security and compliance adaptation. OVHcloud offers pay-as-you-go pricing to help clients reduce cost and save on unused resources. We provide a transparent pricing structure to allow partners to budget efficiently and keep their clients well informed.  

Depending on the blockchain network, ingress and egress traffic may be high if the network is used to process a large number of transactions. Simply put, ingress is the flow of data into the cloud while egress is the flow of data out of the cloud. OVHcloud does not charge ingress and egress traffic for all data moving in and out of our European and North American data centres.  Our performance/price ratio is among the best in the market, enabling partners to stay competitive with predictable pricing structure. 

Compliance 

Compliance in blockchain is an ongoing process. As laws and regulations evolve, organizations need to be prepared to adapt to the changes. Some of the most common compliance-related issues that arise with blockchain technology are data security and data sovereignty.  

We certify our solutions to the highest security standards to demonstrate our commitment to data security and sovereignty. In sectors such as supply chain, banking and finance, and healthcare, where blockchain is finding new uses, we are taking a tailored compliance approach to meet the specific needs of these industries. For instance, ISO 27001/27017/27018, ISO 27701, ANSSI SecNumCloud, PCI DSS and GDPR.  

Partnerships: Use OVHcloud Know-How to Leverage Your Business 

At OVHcloud, we work with partners like Zeeve DeepTech which has a wealth of expertise in blockchain technology. Zeeve DeepTech helps clients with their enterprise-grade automation platform that provides deployment, monitoring and management of blockchain nodes and networks while OVHcloud offers the underlying infrastructure that businesses need to run the blockchain applications on. 

As blockchain technology develop, OVHcloud will continue to work with partners to harness the full potential of the technology and address any challenges they may face.  

Sources: 

1. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/blockchain-technology-market 
   
   Find out more on blockchain!
   Our dedicated web page: https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/learn/what-is-blockchain/
   Our labs page: https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/case-studies/bware-labs/
   Our other blog post on How To Use Cloud to Solve Blockchain Challenges: https://blog.ovhcloud.com/how-to-use-cloud-to-solve-blockchain-challenges/
   Our Whitepaper: https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/powering-your-blockchain-technology-with-cloud/

Choosing a cloud provider

Before we dig deeper into any discussion about underlying cloud technology, it is important to recognise the differences between cloud service providers (CSP). They may offer very different solution sets and not all will meet the needs of your ideal blockchain infrastructure.

When it comes to developing your blockchain infrastructure, hybrid and multi-cloud options are crucial, as they open the door to blockchain interoperability and decentralization. Some CSPs are multilocal, which is an advantage for the decentralized nature of the blockchain back-end. However, only providers with a large portfolio of implemented solutions are likely to offer both hybrid and multi-cloud networking services.

A cloud provider’s stance on regulatory policies is also important. Not all providers will offer industry-specific compliance guidelines and data sovereignty regulations, such as GDPR within the EU. Some providers operate within these frameworks and are fully compliant. A provider might also offer the benefits of open-source solutions, which is a huge asset for interoperability, reversibility, and multi cloud strategies.

Very few cloud service providers offer their cloud products with no ingress and egress data traffic fees. These assurances are vital, as they are likely to save you money in the long run. 

Cloud technology to power the blockchain industry

Cloud solutions appear to be the logical choice when it comes to powering your blockchain technology. There are a range of viable cloud technologies that cater to blockchain infrastructure requirements, including:

Bare-metal

A dedicated server gives the user total flexibility to design the software layer, so you get the control you need to design and manage your machine. With cloud-based bare-metal servers, the hardware is maintained by the provider. The solution is delivered with networking features such as enhanced public connectivity bandwidth options, and private vLAN connectivity, helping you meet clustering, and scalability requirements.

Additionally there are built-in hardware capabilities that are a great fit for enhanced blockchain security, such as Intel Software Guard Extension (SGX) allowing dedicated servers equipped with specific CPU chipsets for confidential computing based on hardware encryption.

Public Cloud

Public Cloud solutions are well-suited to the needs of blockchain companies. The technology’s underlying bare-metal resources are shared with more than one business, on top of which the cloud service provider has built the product itself.

Public Cloud solutions enable users to increase efficiency through automation. For example, when using Public Cloud services hypervised via open-source software, such as OpenStack, users can – using the OpenStack CLI, Terraform, or Ansible – achieve this for VM-based automation and management. 

There are also specialised orchestration tools like Kubernetes, with a fully managed master node layer and automations. This form of cloud-based infrastructure, known as Managed Kubernetes, is often used by blockchain developers because it decreases the time-to-market as well as the need for hardware maintenance. By harnessing this technology, DevOps talents can spend more time focusing on proper R&D.

Hosted Private cloud

Hosted private cloud platforms help tackle the pain point of shared resources. Unlike Dedicated Servers, which are Infrastructure as-a-Service (IaaS), Hosted Private Clouds are more likely to be Platform as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions. These clusters are equipped with specialised Hypervisor solutions, from companies such as Nutanix, and VMware. They specialise in building software that manages underlying infrastructure. These solutions include integrated, ready-to-use features offering capabilities such as infrastructure management and monitoring, custom virtualised networking, automation, plus disaster recovery and backup.

These solutions offer improved redundancy features, such as service uptime due to high availability. This improves fault tolerance as the product itself is designed with a minimum of two hosts. If one of the underlying nodes goes down, the overall infrastructure is still operable. In short, there is no single point of failure.

Cloud-based Platform as-a-Service solutions are best suited to the blockchain industry. More specifically, hosted private cloud products offer orchestration tools to develop private containerised environments. VMware and Nutanix offer orchestration products, such as  Tanzu or Nutanix Kubernetes engine. These solutions are fully scalable, secure, and private.

Key considerations when choosing Cloud infrastructure

The use of Cloud in the blockchain industry is growing exponentially. Many cloud services and products support blockchain infrastructure needs – whether it’s Bare-metal, Public Cloud, or Hosted Private Cloud solutions.

Choosing your ideal infrastructure provider for blockchain requires careful consideration. To make this easier we have devised a set of criteria that will help you assess the attributes of key suppliers:

Companies should choose a cloud provider based on key attributes, including:

Blockchain and Cloud may well be a match made in heaven, but the combination requires careful selection and planning with your Cloud provider and a strong partnership to stay ahead of the challenges that are sure to come your way.