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The cloud infrastructure space is on the brink of a revolutionary change with the advent of blockchain technology. Blockchain’s decentralized nature and exceptional fault tolerance make it an ideal solution for record management tasks like financial transactions, identity management, provenance and authentication.
Blockchain technology offers enhanced network security, data privacy and decentralization; the cloud provides high scalability and elasticity. The convergence of cloud and blockchain has the potential to create innovative solutions that will revolutionize the tech industry.
Blockchain’s emergence in the cloud infrastructure space is poised to shatter the conventional model of centralized cloud providers. The decentralized model promises to transform applications and data hosting for developers and businesses alike. In addition, this development has the potential to significantly impact data latency on the internet, offering improved performance and reliability.
As changing business demands drive the tech evolution, blockchain’s adoption in cloud/edge computing will play a crucial role in shaping the future of the digital landscape.
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The need for a decentralized cloud model
Cloud computing has become an integral part of modern life, thanks to the internet, the digital revolution and advanced technologies that make our lives easier and more convenient. While cloud computing has revolutionized data management and storage, it has several areas for improvement that stem from its centralized nature.
“Having a main central server makes data easily hackable. And due to monopolies of a few providers, user data is easily available and can be manipulated for business purposes. Additionally, centralized data management is reaching its saturation point, which leads to expensive data storage options for users down the road,” Anantha Krishnan, CEO of Sarvalabs and founder of MOI, a context-aware P2P protocol, told VentureBeat.
These issues highlight the need for a decentralized approach to cloud computing, one where the power is in the hands of the users and data is not vulnerable to manipulation or hacking.
The emergence of blockchain technology has paved the way for a new era of decentralized cloud computing and storage, presenting a viable alternative to traditional, centralized architectures. Decentralized cloud computing promises to address these shortcomings and usher in a new era of data management and storage that is secure, transparent and accessible to all.
Unlike centralized storage systems that rely on multiple servers hosted in a centralized database, decentralized storage involves distributing data across multiple computers (i.e., nodes) connected on a peer-to-peer network.
Immutability and data provenance with blockchain
“Blockchain itself can be used within a private ‘walled garden’ as well,” Ian Foley, chief business officer at data storage blockchain firm Arweave, told VentureBeat. “It is a technology structure that brings immutability and maintains data provenance. Centralized cloud vendors are also developing blockchain solutions, but they lack the benefits of decentralization. Decentralized cloud infrastructures are always independent of centralized environments, enabling enterprises and individuals to access everything they’ve stored without going through a specific application.”
Decentralized storage platforms use the power of blockchain technology to offer transparency and verifiable proof for data storage, consumption and reliability through cryptography. This eliminates the need for a centralized provider and gives users greater control over their data.
With decentralized storage, data is stored in a wide peer-to-peer (P2P) network, offering transfer speeds that are generally faster than traditional centralized storage systems. In addition, the entire process is handled by nearby peers, rather than servers hosted in a physical location, enabling users to transfer and access their data with greater ease and efficiency.
“Instead of relying on today’s content delivery networks (CDNs), content addressability can be used to get data automatically from the closest peer in a large P2P network,” said Krishnan. “The Web3 sector is moving toward fast performance and secure interactions, which can enhance traditional sectors immensely.”
Tackling AI security challenges through decentralization
The decentralized nature of blockchain, which relies on a user’s private key instead of a cloud administrator’s, provides an advantage in terms of ownership and control of data. With privacy concerns at an all-time high, many tech enthusiasts are calling for a transition from the current Web2 to the more decentralized and secure Web3. Through blockchain, Web3 offers consumers greater autonomy and data sovereignty, which is becoming increasingly critical as we enter the era of mass-scale artificial intelligence (AI).
“It is easy to crawl social media and data online for use in training AI algorithms. With Web3, we envision the licensing and permitted uses being embedded directly into the data as it is stored. This will enable users to prevent, for example, their photos from being used to morph into an AI-generated image,” said Foley. ”This feature is a significant step forward in safeguarding privacy, and it’s one of the reasons why blockchain technology for cloud is gaining traction.”
Blockchain offers many other security benefits. Its ledger system prevents anyone from deleting or tampering with data by creating an unalterable record of the original source. This feature is crucial for maintaining data integrity, and it’s a major reason why blockchain-based cloud systems are being adopted in various industries, from finance to healthcare.
A future of opportunities for decentralized cloud computing
Foley believes the advent of decentralized blockchain/cloud technology will initiate a transformative phase of consent-driven data exchange, further escalating the innovation rate.
“With permissions and usage restrictions on data and content, as well as the breadth of data needed to avoid bias in future algorithms, blockchain-based decentralized cloud infrastructure is poised to explode with growth,” he said. “I absolutely believe in this emerging technology’s vision, and it comes from all the benefits of decentralization and of blockchain data’s immutability and provenance.”
For his part, Krishnan said blockchain-based cloud infrastructure is here to stay.
“Progress will be around creating million-node decentralized P2P cloud structures that are accessed in a simple manner. The real opportunity is the ability to enable the emerging digital society to be democratic, sustainable and equitable. Empowering individuals and allowing them to control their digital experiences the way they want (instead of controlling as it is today) is exciting,” said Krishnan. “Blockchain-based cloud services enable this by creating user-controlled infrastructure and data management layers in a shared infrastructure.”
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