Cloud-based blockchain for enterprises

Cloud-based blockchain technology to secure, share and track data across decentralised infrastructures within enterprises sounds magical. Gospel Technology claims to have this with the launch of Gospel Cloud Version 1, based on a private, permissioned distributed ledger system.

“We’re living in a new data culture where information is the most vital asset for a business. Constant reports of breaches, malicious hacking from external parties and the corruption of facts to disseminate “fake news” has exacerbated an atmosphere of mistrust in game changing technologies such as cloud, AI and IoT. High profile brands with large security budgets even appear not to be immune” Ian Smith, the founder of Gospel Technology says.

The purpose

At the heart of Gospel Cloud is this private, permissioned distributed ledger, containing:

• key enterprise data (whether this is intellectual property, personal, sensitive content, healthcare records, or whatever)
• an absolute record of trusted transactions
• access unlocked by Gospel’s Distributed Data Logic
• a real time user consent engine
• rendered real time data views of historical changes at the data content level
• LedgerBridge, with support for SAP, Oracle, instructed filesystems, etc
• enhanced end-to-end encryption (TLS)
• delivery as a built platform (allegedly enterprises can deployed it without extensive customisation and/or services)
• blockchain agnosticism; Gospel Cloud is a derivative from the Hyperledger using pluggable consensus; this can change to align with defined threat models.

Gospel Cloud takes the distributed consensus and immutability features of blockchain. It implements this without the time and resource draining downside of public blockchains. In so doing it removes the replication and risk of corruption, accidental deletion and malicious data.

Distributed Data Logic drives a rethinking of consent and real-time transactional approval. It takes into account not only multi-layer authentication but elements of transactional context – including identity, location, action, time, trend and other aspects – to ensure absolute trust and authentication at the point of transaction.

Combining such a private permissioned distributed ledger eliminates many of the expensive, inefficient and insecure workarounds required to share data with third parties. Gospel sees these workarounds as an unnecessary if inevitable consequence of the new digital age clashing with traditional siloed solutions.

Furthermore, in the new threat dynamics of the modern digital enterprise, a private distributed blockchain offers a level of confidence which a conventional distributed database could never hope to attain in terms of efficiency and security.

Conclusion

The ability to avoid the inefficiencies of public blockchains – while continuing to deliver immutable proof of provenance, usage history, integrity and authenticity – makes the Gospel Cloud concept simpler than a public blockchain. Placing it in a cloud environment matches the move to reduce the cost of running your own IT.

Boiled down, Gospel Cloud’s core benefits enable enterprises to collaborate securely as users upload and share sensitive data and records. The result means enterprises can comply with the far stricter rules on treatment and protection of personal data (such as those in the looming EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Delivered in a cloud the claimed utility could prove attractive, especially if performance and cost don’t become gating factors.