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Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service

zdnet.com

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Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service

#61

Post by Clewza313 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #54
lars wrote: post #32

Similar to how "god of the gaps" arguments work, there's a "god of complexity" phenomenon in tech, where people will project infinite possibilities onto technology they don't understand. Blockchain is a brilliant solution to an extremely rare problem. It lets you do distributed consensus among untrusted nodes in a setting where contributing compute power is economically incentivized (e.g. where there's mining). That…

It’s a technology that’s as easy to shit on as it is to hype! I don’t know about the Azure service, but blockchains are a useful tool for a lot of different use cases.

Such as?

Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service

#62

Post by encryptluks2 »

nomoreplease wrote: post #57
peterkelly wrote: post #14

> Microsoft's documentation suggests users start migrating to an alternative now So, a database?

This brings up a good question. How do you migrate a blockchain from Azure to somewhere else?

You rebuild it, same with any public cloud that isn't using an open standard. That is why people should only invest enough effort into a cloud to deploy an agnostic solution like Kubernetes.

Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service

#63

Post by sneak »

simias wrote: post #40
lars wrote: post #32

Similar to how "god of the gaps" arguments work, there's a "god of complexity" phenomenon in tech, where people will project infinite possibilities onto technology they don't understand. Blockchain is a brilliant solution to an extremely rare problem. It lets you do distributed consensus among untrusted nodes in a setting where contributing compute power is economically incentivized (e.g. where there's mining). That…

Some of it is that, some of it is just simple greed. Many people think they're too good to fall for pyramid schemes and MLM, yet they'll dump money into cryptocurrencies or some meme stock because they think it'll make them millionaires. I too believe that the blockchain is mostly useless outside of buying drugs online, yet I don't think cryptocurrencies are going anywhere any time soon. It's effectively become a cas…

> I too believe that the blockchain is mostly useless outside of buying drugs online

Decentralized financial tools like Uniswap and its ilk have finally changed that.

Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service

#64

Post by enumjorge »

simias wrote: post #40
lars wrote: post #32

Similar to how "god of the gaps" arguments work, there's a "god of complexity" phenomenon in tech, where people will project infinite possibilities onto technology they don't understand. Blockchain is a brilliant solution to an extremely rare problem. It lets you do distributed consensus among untrusted nodes in a setting where contributing compute power is economically incentivized (e.g. where there's mining). That…

Some of it is that, some of it is just simple greed. Many people think they're too good to fall for pyramid schemes and MLM, yet they'll dump money into cryptocurrencies or some meme stock because they think it'll make them millionaires. I too believe that the blockchain is mostly useless outside of buying drugs online, yet I don't think cryptocurrencies are going anywhere any time soon. It's effectively become a cas…

> It's effectively become a casino for millenials and zoomers

Mark Cuban and Elon Musk are also investing in cryptocurrencies and neither of them fall into those age groups.

Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service

#65

Post by marcinzm »

moksly wrote: post #56
marcinzm wrote: post #48

This doesn't seem like a good PR move for Azure in terms of enterprise sales. One of the big selling points of AWS is that they support everything pretty much forever. Azure has now made it clear that they can and will shutdown services with relatively short notice.

Enterprise doesn’t worry too much about changes or shutdowns. We worry about them when they happen quickly, surprisingly or without plans for how we move forward. I’d be pretty happy if our legacy Mainframe systems got shut down, with a decent plan for how our suppliers would move forward to other technologies. As it stands there are only two national companies left who can handle mainframes in my country, so there i…

> We worry about them when they happen quickly, surprisingly or without plans for how we move forward.

This change has a 4 month notice period and the plan to move forward from MS seems to be literally "you should switch to something else." So this change doesn't seem to tick any of the boxes you mentioned.

Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service

#66

Post by kthejoker2 »

nomoreplease wrote: post #59
moksly wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enterprise doesn’t worry too much about changes or shutdowns. We worry about them when they happen quickly, surprisingly or without plans for how we move forward. I’d be pretty happy if our legacy Mainframe systems got shut down, with a decent plan for how our suppliers would move forward to other technologies. As it stands there are only two national companies left who can handle mainframes in my country, so there i…

> Microsoft's product page for Azure BaaS lists GE, J.P. Morgan, Singapore Airlines, Starbucks and Xbox as customers. The article says that these enterprises are using it

Uhh ... that means they did a pilot with it back when BaaS started out.

50 bucks says none of them actively use Azure Blockchain for anything meaningful in their organization.

And Consensys is MSFT's preferred BaaS ISV these days.

Source: work at MSFT Partner, occasionally co-discuss BaaS with clients.

Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service

#67

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

picardo wrote: post #60
koheripbal wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why these would need a blockchain rather than just a centralized database. I'm very skeptical of these use cases.

Banking systems are complex. You can't build a single centralized system that works for everyone, let alone get everyone to trust each other on the system. The solution needs to be decentralized, trustworthy and provide built-in checks for integrity.

Would you say that we have a "a single centralized system that works for everyone" in banking now? It seems more like a patchwork of a lot of systems to me.

Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service

#68

Post by purple_ferret »

_pdp_ wrote: post #3

What are the practical uses of private blockchains anyway?

NY runs its Vaccine passport on an IBM blockchain citing privacy benefits:

>special emphasis has been placed on the protection of an individual's privacy. Secure technologies, like blockchain and encryption, are woven throughout Excelsior Pass to help protect the data, making it verifiable and trusted. No private health data is stored or tracked within the apps. Excelsior Pass can be used to voluntarily show a QR code as proof of COVID-19 vaccination or negative test result via a digital smartphone wallet or printed credential without sharing underlying personal health details.

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-la...

Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service

#70

Post by matthewaveryusa »

lars wrote: post #32

Similar to how "god of the gaps" arguments work, there's a "god of complexity" phenomenon in tech, where people will project infinite possibilities onto technology they don't understand. Blockchain is a brilliant solution to an extremely rare problem. It lets you do distributed consensus among untrusted nodes in a setting where contributing compute power is economically incentivized (e.g. where there's mining). That…

>contributing compute power is economically incentivized

I think this is the aspect in blockchain that has really been stretched. Most problems are within closed networks and solved with digital signatures -- is the act of signing a record proof of work? If you squint hard enough and razzle-dazzle it enough I could see how you could call it that -- or simply call it a database with a signature column :)

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