Amazon Has Launched a New Service for Building Blockchains

Tech giant Amazon is launching a blockchain service to help clients develop blockchain networks without incurring the costs of creating their own platform.

Announced Wednesday at Amazon's re:Invent conference, the Amazon Managed Blockchain platform "is a fully managed service that makes it easy to create and manage scalable blockchain networks." Users can build platforms using either Hyperledger Fabric or ethereum, though the latter is not yet available.

The new platform is another aspect of Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud computing subsidiary which powers a large number of websites and services, including platforms like Netflix.

"Amazon Managed Blockchain eliminates the overhead required to create the network, and automatically scales to meet the demands of thousands of applications running millions of transactions," the service's website says.

Further, the company announced that the blockchain platform can store data on another database product, saying:

"Managed Blockchain can replicate an immutable copy of your blockchain network activity into Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB), a fully managed ledger database. This allows you to easily analyze the network activity outside the network and gain insights into trends."

The QLDB is not a blockchain platform, but can be used in conjunction with Amazon's blockchain product to "maintain a complete and verifiable history of data changes."

The service is currently in preview, meaning those interested can sign up. If approved, they will be able to create a blockchain network, at which point they can either invite other Amazon Web Services members or "create more members in your account to simulate a multi-member network," according to an FAQ section.

Amazon image via Sundry Photography/Shutterstock