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IBM Blockchain Platform

Score9.7 out of 10

46 Reviews and Ratings

What is IBM Blockchain Platform?

Hyperledger Fabric tools and technologies to help build, govern, operate and grow blockchain solutions that can be deployed anywhere.

The IBM Blockchain Platform is IBM's commercial deployment of Hyperledger Fabric open source and comes with 24x7x365 support with production grade SLA's to insure blockchain open source solutions stays running.

Categories & Use Cases

My IBM Blockchain Platform Review

Pros

  • This is a well managed private chain so, best in providing solutions to private organizations.
  • For an organization that manages a large amount of data, IBM Blockchain Platform is highly recommended.
  • Security-wise it's well designed to work with several organizations and consortia.

Cons

  • IBM Blockchain Platform dashboard can be better and fast.
  • Feature-wise many advanced features can be added for better management of IBM Blockchain Platform.
  • The certificate is difficult to handle and not auto-renewed when it's expired. It's a really difficult process to renew it.

Return on Investment

  • We worked with AST (American Stock Transfer) to record their votes. It was our first product to run in production, which gave us really a big ROI after we started our project.
  • We also started working with PipelineDL and tracking their assets, which made a big impact on supply chain industries.

Alternatives Considered

IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, IBM Event Streams (formerly Message Hub) and IBM Cloud Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

Other Software Used

IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, IBM Cloud Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), IBM Event Streams (formerly Message Hub), IBM Load Balancer, IBM Cloud SQL Query, IBM Cloud Object Storage

Experience in a financial institution on South America

Pros

  • User friendly.
  • High availability.
  • Easy to use.

Cons

  • Sometimes the administration page is unstable.
  • We had to migrate quickly from v1 to v2.
  • We almost lost the platform due to other priorities.

Return on Investment

  • No server management.
  • No worries installing patches
  • Tools that can give us some alerts.

Alternatives Considered

Azure Blockchain Service

Other Software Used

IBM Cloud Object Storage, MongoDB, IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service

IBM Blockchain in Action

Pros

  • Private blockchain.
  • Hierarchical permission levels that are realistic when it comes to businesses.
  • Ability to write code using easy to use frameworks and tools.

Cons

  • Decentralized and distributed implementation.
  • Delimitation of interactions and metering.
  • Moving to less verbose more modern safe languages such as Kotlin, Rust, Swift, etc.

Return on Investment

  • ROI suffers since it is expensive and not well documented.
  • ROI suffers from a lack of understanding in the market.
  • ROI suffers from the lack of developers.

Other Software Used

DB2

IBM Blockchain Platform provides the "training wheels" you need

Pros

  • We need to create organizations, channels, and nodes dynamically through code. IBM Blockchain Platform makes this easier for us.
  • By using IBM Blockchain Platform, we gain the advantage of IBM's advanced tools that facilitate necessary activities such as governance.
  • Critical tasks such as installing and upgrading chain code and other related tasks are made easier by IBM Blockchain Platform.
  • IBM Blockchain Platform takes away many unknowns and helps us to plan the project with confidence.

Cons

  • More levels of pricing. I think the pricing is the number one deterrent. Also, the high cost of development and R&D causes customers to hesitate to commit to IBM Blockchain Platform.

Return on Investment

  • We are still waiting to see what our ROI can be. This depends on whether we can deploy IBM Blockchain Platform in a cost-effective way. We are working on our ESA with Ingram Micro.

Alternatives Considered

Oracle Blockchain Cloud

Faster bootstrapping than hav dev teams roll their own

Pros

  • Local testing environment
  • Clear deployment strategy
  • Solid support team backup

Cons

  • Improve trust and loyalty by making the mechanism of lock-in less obtuse and more transparent.
  • Stay up to date with the latest releases of the FOSS hyper ledge fabric.
  • Make multi-cloud deployments easier.

Return on Investment

  • Speed to market.

Alternatives Considered

Amazon Managed Blockchain

Other Software Used

React, Node