AERGO — Distributed Trust at Scale
If you dabble in latest technologies and do not live in a cave, the word blockchain will be familiar to you. It has been 9 years that the early learners heard about it first and as the world moves towards more technology based solutions, we cannot ignore the fact that blockchain will be one of the leaders in the tech space.
But everybody does not understand the workings of blockchain. Not everyone who drives a car knows how a car works. They need not necessarily understand the working of an engine. All they need to know is once you step the accelerator the car in gear systems will move either forward or backward depending on the type of gear the car has been shifted into. On the other hand if there was any compulsion to learn the entire process of the fuel injection system, the cam shaft movement, along with the transmission and gear systems, the automobile industry would lose a large number of our clients.
Welcome to AERGO. The company that will make blockchain adoption simpler for businesses.
PaaS!!! Ever heard of it? Call it the base which has made life easy for coders, testers and developers. Aergo will do something similar for blockchain developers.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Application Platform as a Service (aPaaS) or platform base service is a category of cloud computing services that provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching an app. Aergo on the other hand is doing something similar. It proposes to be a 4th generation “enterprise ready” blockchain protocol combined with an IT platform that uses new and more advanced technologies. It proposes to include a comprehensive ecosystem of complementary decentralized application (“dApp”), technologies and service providers that leverage secure cloud delivery models. When the original PaaS was developed the founder then introduced the tag line “Pre Shaved Yaks” which clearly indicated the removal of repetitive tasks. The advantages of PaaS are primarily that it allows for higher-level programming with dramatically reduced complexity; the overall development of the application can be more effective, as it has built-in/self-up-and-down ramping infrastructure resources; and maintenance and enhancement of the application is thus easier.
Possible perceived disadvantages of various PaaS providers as cited by their users include increased pricing at larger scales, lack of operational features, reduced control, and the vagaries of traffic routing systems. The advantages showcased for PaaS are also relevant to AERGO. Considering the disadvantages, only time will be able to tell. With the increase competition and already blockchain being termed as the next big thing, increase in cost will not seem to be the issue. With changing times , companies and individuals are focusing on time and security viz a viz cost being negated at a larger extent.
Gaps in the current system:
In spite of numerous advances in ERP systems and PaaS products, there are still gaps in implementation and execution. Some of the most common ones are:
No scope for predictive and preventive maintenance — Regular and irregular downtime is common with many systems since they don’t come equipped with maintenance plans. There’s possibility of hacks and breaches with could be catastrophic for organisations that maintain crucial information on servers.
Cannot accommodate other products/technologies/changes — A lot of systems are end-to-end solutions with no possibility to adapt a new technology or an additional product. Moreover, if a company undergoes changes in say, business practices, the ERP and PaaS products installed onsite may not be able to adapt. Flexibility is important especially in the tech space to allow for new products to be integrated into existing platforms.
It is a silo or a collection silos — ERP systems and PaaS products are often built up as a collection of modules that don’t interact with each other. Often times making it necessary to repeat steps when accessing different modules/functionalities. An ideal ERP/PaaS should have a system of free flowing information across the platform.
Enter Aergo!
Aergo, in their own words, is a ‘4th generation enterprise-ready blockchain protocol, being built for developers, for businesses and for the IT suppliers that enable them.’ Aergo’s main aim is to create a server-less architecture, where the system level complexities will be abstracted from developers. Programmers would thus be able to focus more on creating innovative solutions using Aergo’s platform, rather than breaking their head on figure out how to write smart contracts. The blockchain would satisfy the requirements of security, privacy and scalability that is essential for enterprises. It would also provide a platform for businesses and 3rd party vendors (such as dApp developers, cloud delivery partners and independent contributors) to connect and interact.
The major components in Aergo’s ecosystem are Aergo Chain (Aergo’s blockchain), Aergo Hub and Aergo Marketplace.
Aergo Chain will utilize DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake) as the consensus algorithm. DPoS is secure, cost effective, more tolerant towards block reorganization, and in general, better suited for enterprise blockchains. A SQL based smart contract language, known as AERGOSQL, would be used for coding smart contracts. SQL is a well known technology, and this would help IT programmers to easily shift over to Aergo Chain. Aergo would host its own distributed file file system, known as AERGOFS. A distributed version control similar to Git would be used for branching and merging in Aergo Chain. Concurrency control will be provided through block and pool level serialization.
In order to handle scalability issues, 3 different solutions would be used — Domain based partitioning, Scale Up and Scale Out. In Domain based partitioning, Aergo’s distributed ledger would be partitioned physically and logically using different repositories. GitHub also uses a similar algorithm for scaling performance. On the other hand, Scale Out and Scale Up will improve the data handling capability of all nodes or a single node respectively. Finally, Aergo will use parallelism and create a data structure known as Deterministic Transaction Tree, for optimizing system performance.
Aergo Hub will comprise of repositories to store dApps which are part of Aergo’s platform — a public and a private repository. The public repository will be accessible to everyone on Aergo’s platform, while the private repository will have access control. Through these repositories, Aergo will provide the stringent data privacy features that enterprises demand. The Aergo Hub will function like the cloud web services, and help developers from any part of the world to work together. It will be the public interface to Aergo Chain.
Aergo Marketplace will connect software developers, cloud infrastructure vendors and other regular users on Aergo’s platform. It will allow users to purchase or sell software applications, computer resources and other such services. It will be managed through Aergo Horde, an open source public orchestration management and software framework.
Aergo’s core technology is based on COINSTACK from Blocko Inc., a leading blockchain technology and enterprise IT integration-services company. Coinstack is a 3rd generation blockchain, and is being used by over 25 million users wordlwide. Blocko has already deployed their blockchain solutions in companies like Hyundai, Samsung, IBM and LG. Aergo will utilize Blocko’s expertise and experience to develop a world-class blockchain platform. A number of prominent members in Aergo’s team have been involved with Blocko’s projects, and have carried forward their expertise to achieve Aergo’s vision.
In Closing, Aergo is focused on solving the demands and requirements of enterprises trying to leverage on the advantages of the blockchain. They are trying to address the needs of not only IT enterprises and developers, but also any 3rd party vendors who might wish to work with them. Aergo is trying to create an entire ecosystem for all these players to interact. This will enable all the participants to derive maximum value by working with each other.
Check out the project @ https://www.aergo.io/
Aergo Telegram: https://t.me/aergoofficial
Aergo Telegram Ann: https://t.me/aergoannouncements
Aergo Twitter: https://twitter.com/AERGO_IO?lang=en
We have also reviewed Aergo on Slideshare: https://www.slideshare.net/GhumatTrading/aergo-blockchain-distributed-trust-at-scale
Ghumat review of Aergo on Medium: https://medium.com/@ghumattrading/aergo-distributed-trust-at-scale-4461fd3f5b1a
Ghumat review of Aergo on YouTube:
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Debilizm, mlya