Hello and welcome to Protocol Enterprise! Today: why two AWS veterans think they’ve solved the enterprise blockchain conundrum, brace themselves for scrutiny of companies with ties to China, and a new round of Russian cyberattacks could be on the horizon.
The Blockchain Gang
The idea of a cloud-centric approach to solving the challenges businesses face using blockchain to share data was one of those “aha” moments, according to Tim Wagner, co-founder and CEO of Vendia.
“It’s one of those things that you kind of feel the heel of your hand on your forehead like, ‘Duh, why didn’t anyone build this?’ Wagner told Protocol in a recent interview.
- Wagner and co-founder Shruthi Rao, both AWS veterans, launched Vendia in 2020.
- They reimagined the idea of cloud-native blockchains and distributed ledgers with Vendia Share, a fully managed, serverless solution. platform for building decentralized real-time data applications.
- “We have this thesis here: cloud has always been the missing ingredient in blockchain, and Vendia has added it,” Wagner said. “At the heart of our technology is a cloud-centric blockchain.”
Vendia Share makes it easier for customers to share code and data across clouds, enterprises, geographies, accounts, and technology stacks.
- It allows companies to have complete visibility into all activities and transactions without worrying about their origin, because transactions are immutable thanks to the power of distributed ledger technology, according to Rao.
- “We’re making sure whoever’s supposed to get the data gets it in real time, within five milliseconds, so there’s no manual movement,” Rao said.
- “And it’s all on the ledger so you can see who you shared [with]what you shared, when you shared… and you can do a fine analysis of what was shared,” she said.
A database or API that could ensure consistency of enterprise data with their business partners — be it their upstream supply chains, their downstream logistics, or their financial partners — was a compelling prospect that did not escape CIOs, according to Wagner.
- But the first generation of blockchain technology ignored the cloud and presented operational hurdles, including single-machine limitations, lack of throughput and scalability, high costs and difficulty of integration, according to Wagner.
- “We sometimes joke at Vendia that we love nothing better than a failed blockchain experiment,” he said. “Probably half of our transactions last year are replacements for failed blockchain attempts.”
- With cloud-integrated Vendia Share, you have access to virtually unlimited amounts of storage and network and processing capacity.
- “It allows us to do things that conventional blockchains can’t: [Deliver] much higher throughput, lower latency, more processing power, much more parallelism, easier integration,” Wagner said.
Read the full story here.
— Donna Goodison (E-mail | Twitter)
A CAPITAL ONE SOFTWARE MESSAGE
Capital One’s embrace of modern cloud and data capabilities has led us to create tools to operate at scale in the cloud. Capital One Software markets these solutions to help accelerate your journey to cloud and data. Get started with Slingshot, a data management solution for Snowflake customers.
Securing the business
In today’s global landscape, all businesses operating on the Internet have to deal with cybersecurity threats, not just huge tech companies. In this Protocol virtual event On October 4 at 10:00 a.m. PT, we’ll examine current best practices for securing large and small-to-medium businesses, providing viewers with a real landscape of threats and insights they can use to make decisions on the most suitable strategy. supports their business goals.
Protocol Enterprise’s Kyle Alspach will be joined by a large panel of speakers: Andre Rubinco-founder and CEO, Illumio; Alex Weinertvice president and chief identity security officer, Microsoft; Jameeka Green Aaron, Information Security Officer, Auth0; and Devdatta Akhawe, Security Chief. Figma.
The Chinese Syndrome
High political winds are chilling the U.S.-China tech trade relationship, and perhaps more than anything right now, companies with operations in China are worried about one thing the U.S. government might do: change the rules governing investments from China to the United States.
To protect against cybersecurity vulnerabilities and the exploitation of Americans’ data, President Joe Biden on September 15 signed an executive order directing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS (pronounced “if- ee-us” by foreign investment watchers), to be considered scrutinize foreign investment from a national security risk perspective.
“Everyone recognizes the need to protect the national security of the United States. But as Congress and the administration consider new tools, like an outbound investment review regime, it’s critical they get real input from the business community and be specific in what they’re trying to cover. said Rory Murphy, vice president of government affairs. at the US-China Business Council, Protocol said yesterday.
The oft-stated mission to ensure US leadership in emerging technologies is at the heart of this potential shift. During press conferencea senior administration official listed “a handful of priority emerging and critical technologies, such as semiconductors, quantum technologies, biotechnology and artificial intelligence, as well as supply chain considerations” as areas where investment reviews could take place.
The elephant in the room here is China, a “particularly concerning” country that has technology strategies that many in the US government say threaten US leadership in areas related to national security.
But because AI is intertwined with all industries and the technologies they use, AI agreements could face excessive scrutiny if a CFIUS rule is drafted too broadly. “How AI is defined will be important in determining what types of transactions are covered,” Murphy said.
-Kate Kaye (E-mail | Twitter)
Around the company
We already knew this, but there is growing evidence that Russian hackers work in conjunction with the Russian military as Ukraine begins to gain the upper hand in the seven-month war sparked by the Russian invasion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
IBM acquired Dialexa, a hybrid cloud consulting company based in Texas, as it continues to look for ways to latch onto existing customers by offering cloud expertise.
A CAPITAL ONE SOFTWARE MESSAGE
Capital One’s embrace of modern cloud and data capabilities has led us to create tools to operate at scale in the cloud. Capital One Software markets these solutions to help accelerate your journey to cloud and data. Get started with Slingshot, a data management solution for Snowflake customers.
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