Blockchain Technology and database technology

Blockchain Technology and database technology

IBM was one of the first international companies involved in blockchain development, such as the IBM and Samsung blockchain projects and LINUX/IBM joint projects that were well known last year. As the head of the IBM Blockchain technology China and co-chair of the Patent Accreditation Committee, I and the team also filed and received a U.S. patent for the blockchain last October. This is the first blockchain international patent acquired by the Chinese. Shortly thereafter, in December, we organized the IBM Global Fintech Summit and internal closed-door meetings, inviting IBM's 13 research institutes to be a member of the Blockchain-related field, DE, VP and CTO for a 2-day seminar in Shanghai. The result of the discussion is that the company has rapidly increased its blockchain to its global strategy this year. At this summit, one of the core issues of debate is what is the link between blockchain and database? What is the essential difference between a blockchain and a distributed database? In February this year, I attended the WSDM 2016 and Microsoft Global Technology Leaders Summit in the San Francisco Bay Area, and a team began to study blockchain-based data analysis. Recently Oracle has also begun to focus on the topic of further hot-frying of blockchain and databases.
More than 10 years ago, my first job was to develop an ASE database in Sybase that was responsible for the SQL query optimization module. ASE people may not be familiar with, in fact, it is the famous Microsoft SQL Server predecessor. At that time, the domestic database market is basically a monopoly of foreign capital, only a few of the domestic database products are not technically mature. Sybase was one of the few companies in the country that really gave Chinese employees access to the bottom code of the world's first-class database. This low-level coding experience, for me later in IBM responsible for internet finance, man-machine war and other large projects laid a solid foundation, but also give me the opportunity to understand the database and blockchain from the bottom of the relationship.
Database in the IT community, in fact, a particularly ancient research field. From the original file system to the later ER entity Relationship model. The Entity Relationship model has spawned a series of great database companies and software, such as IBM's DB2, Sybase,oracle, Microsoft's Sqlserver,mysql, and so on. As well, three major achievements of traditional database, relational model, transaction processing and query optimization are brought about. And then with the advent of the Internet, MANGODB is the typical representative of the NoSQL database to rise. Database technology itself is constantly evolving, and has always been a hot direction, including the semi-structured XML, based on text, voice and image of unstructured data processing. For example, in recent years, we often say that big data, in fact, is a small branch of database research.
Speaking of the relationship between the database and the blockchain, I personally think that this and virtual reality and the relationship between the film is somewhat similar. The film is a more ancient industry. From the very beginning of silent movies, to black and white movies, to color movies, to now we often see 3D movies, Imax movies. Today's film industry has grown beyond the imagination of all. In particular, the advent of television, we think is the end of the film industry. But in fact, the development of the TV with the film went completely two different dimensions. The film industry is constantly actively absorbing new technologies and bringing new experiences to viewers. Perhaps the next new technology that could be incorporated into the movie might be virtual reality. Virtual reality technology is both a challenge and an opportunity to unleash the artist's imagination and allow them to create a world that could not have existed before. Like the movie inception, artists can imagine a world of anti-gravity and bring the world to the audience. In other words, the film can rely on technology to achieve new visual space and enjoyment.

The relationship between blockchain and database seems to be the same. From the process of database technology evolution can be found, it has such a continuous vitality to meet the new business needs, to create a variety of unique data processing technology. It can be said that every generation of database technology innovation is due to the reality of the needs of the cause. For example, from the beginning of the file system why the evolution of the ER entity Relationship model, in fact, because of the development of financial banks. There is a very real demand for fast bookkeeping, support for high-concurrency data writing and access, which leads to the production of real relational models and rapid development. Later, NoSQL appeared, in fact, because of the rapid development of the Internet to the database put forward new requirements. Internet project development time is very tense, the project needs fast iteration. There is absolutely no way to tolerate the traditional SQL database-based development approach. Because in the entity Relationship model, the design of the database table needs to be defined very accurately according to the business logic. The fast iterative characteristics of Internet projects are doomed to the rapid adjustment of its business logic. If all the database tables are redesigned from scratch, then the middle access layer will be interrupted and unbearable, leading to the advent of NoSQL. You can write a particularly good database application without having to understand the SQL statement. Of course, there are more and richer connotations that NoSQL supports. For example, he is based on fast data write operations, and does not require too much change and delete operations. In essence, we can assume that the entire Internet is a large database.
The problem is that things are constantly evolving, and when we solve the problem of massive data processing on the Internet through NoSQL databases, cloud storage and other technologies, the next problem follows. Is that how to solve the problem of data authenticity and validity in a large-scale way? In fact, this really effective demand is also very easy to understand. At some point, it seems as if we humans have the same demand for food. At the beginning, people have more food and fewer foods, first of all to solve the problem that everyone has a chance to eat, that is, the problem of food scale. Then one day, we found that everyone could eat. Because the production of food, especially meat production, is already a way of industrial operation. This time everyone in turn, to pursue organic food, the pursuit of these return to nature, return to natural food. This time, a new organic food industry has been created. The same is true of database development. When we pass the ER entity Relationship model, through NoSQL, we can solve the scalability problem of data storage and data access well. Then we must solve and care about the problem, it must be the authenticity, effectiveness of the problem. Just as we are now in demand for natural and organic food.
Therefore, it is a new starting point and new requirement for the data organization demand, which is represented by blockchain, which is true, effective, non-forgery and can not be tampered with, relative to the existing database. It's becoming clear to me that the trend of database and blockchain convergence is almost unstoppable. Just as the film's development has been unstoppable toward the development of virtual reality technology.
From the point of view of database, Blockchain is a new way of data organization. In line with the phenomenal development of history, the financial industry has once again become the original advocate and user of this new technology. The need for data authenticity, non-forgery and tampering is likely to trigger and create several blockchain database companies. Because the database is the cornerstone of the IT industry, it can be inferred that the impact of blockchain on the IT community can be far-reaching.
April 25, by the cloth company together with the Guangdong Princess Integration System Co., Ltd. together to build the first domestic asset-based blockchain integration platform-------------- "Princess points" integration system into the concept of blockchain, multi-party joint open, points issued and exchanged to facilitate the flow of points. Cooperating organizations can participate in transaction verification, ledger storage, real-time settlement, and the third-party payment platform of enterprise points issuer, which makes the integration more flexible. The fabric blockchain platform is divided into the basic framework layer (BUBICHAIN) and the application adaptation layer (Bubi application adaptors). Base frame layer? Based on the fabric ratio protocol cluster, it includes the cloth ratio account, the cloth ratio ledger, the fabric ratio consensus, and the four pluggable basic modules of the peer group Network. Apply an adaptation layer? Provide the functional components (assets, transactions, contracts, etc.) required for the upper-level applications, provide the private key preservation and management required by the account system, and provide the visualization tools required for operations management (configuration, monitoring, data analysis, blockchain browser, etc.)

Blockchain Technology and database technology