AMAZON QLDB — Challenger to Blockchain platforms?

QLDB is a centrally administered immutable data ledger within AWS. QLDB stands for Quantum Ledger Database. Amazon QLDB is all the way a managed ledger that offers a verifiable transaction log that is cryptographically-encrypted. Then, it offers the most important features such as transparency and immutability.

What is Amazon QLDB?

It is a new blockchain-based technology invented by Amazon in September 2019. They want to provide the managed ledger database along with several features. They are:

● The database will provide us with a cryptographic transaction log.

● Offers blockchain features such as transparency and immutability.

● It is different from another blockchain because it is managed by a centralized authority.

● Along with the history of the transaction, we can add new records in the same database.

● To protect the changes, it allows the changes to the data with the cryptographic verification using hash code.

Our of 4 key features of blockchain, QLDB AWS QLDB satisfies two;

Immutable records: Once written to the ledger, the data is immutable and cannot be deleted or updated.

Verifiable audit: A cryptographically and independently verifiable audit trail is needed to satisfy the use case, for example, to prove the provenance or state of an asset.

USE CASES of QLDB, replacement of costly blockchain solutions;

QLDB is flexible in its approach, it offers a broad range to the use cases such as financial, manufacturing, HR, insurance, retail, supply chain, payroll.

Let’s take an example for the financial service:

QLDB can behave like a digital book to store all transactions. The financial institutions can use this ledger in a centralized way to store the track of the transactions like a loan, bank payments, debit, and credit transactions. As an organization business, we can provide the QLDB to the system in a well-organized manner. A business cannot go wrong with benefits like immutability, transparency, and scalability.

EASE OF USE:

In this case, Amazon QLDB provides versatility with ease of use and in a much better way. It provides familiar databases efficiently and also validates PartiSQL out-of-the-box. QLDB is a SQL-compatible query language that is open source and supports data types and structures. Using SQL operations, it provides an easy way to access the data. As a business, we can easily store semi-structured and structured data. Ultimately, QLDB is ACID-compliant.

EASE OF SETUP:

QLDB is easy to set up. They provide a QLDB driver which requires to download, install, configure to join the application to a QLDB.

SUPPORT QUALITY:

Amazon QLDB is a premium solution that brings with its support. Thus, if we found any problem while working with it, we can take the help of supporting staff.

Pricing:

As we know Amazon QLDB is not open-source software, hence, it is a paid service. Any application using anywhere charge $50 to $100 per month, and the charge price is affordable to the business owners

DOES AMAZON QLDB CHALLENGE PERMISSIONED BLOCKCHAIN?

QLDB offers immutability, once the data is written to a ledger, it cannot be altered or deleted. To create a verifiable audit trail, cryptography requires to be used to satisfy the use-case. It offers a unique approach to the business for blockchain features.

QLDB is a cost-effective, easy, and yet interesting way to implement the characteristics of a permissioned network without the need to radically change the whole process.

Without the need to invest deeply into the fully-fledged blockchain, it creates an immutable data authenticated audit trail.

We can easily conclude now that, QLDB doesn’t directly challenge the permissioned network but help the business to reach a new level.