Blockchain consortium technology considerations

The technology is not the objective. It helps achieve the objective

Before they commit to pursuing a blockchain consortium solution, organizations should remember one key point more than any other: The technology should complement and support the effort, not define it. In other words, don’t join a consortium just because it’s blockchain enabled; join a consortium because its use of enterprise blockchain solutions can help it—and your business–achieve the goals you are striving to reach.

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The importance of understanding and mutual agreement

When joining a consortium, businesses must understand key blockchain consortium technology considerations, assess how their own technology choices will align with those of the consortium, and develop an in-depth understanding of how the consortium’s strategic objectives align with their own.

But understanding of the technology is just half the battle. Mutual agreement represents the other half.

To this end, it is important that consortium members agree on, and adopt, common communication and data standards so that everyone is working from the same playbook. Similarly, it is important that consortium members agree on the interoperability of their individual software packages and those used by the consortium. Without some sort of clear transaction standardization in place, communication is likely to become confused and more difficult than it should be, hindering the free flow of information between consortium members and putting a damper on individual members’ willingness to participate.

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Resource and organizational structure challenges

To combat this, participating businesses need to do more than just pay lip service to the concept of the consortium. They need to involve empowered decision makers in the exercise and come together to make key decisions. This is one reason why enterprise blockchain solutions architects and experienced blockchain developers with 10 to 15 years of experience in the field are now in such high demand.

Organizations that are unfamiliar with blockchain technology are often scared of it and reluctant to act for fear of doing something “wrong.” That’s why solutions architects, and the people who are implementing this technology, should have years of experience behind them to understand those subtleties of implementation.

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Data ownership in a consortium

In a consortium, matters around data ownership are key and serve as a source of some anxiety. To help alleviate some of the worries related to data ownership, companies must decide if data needs to be on the blockchain in the first place. Some data should, in fact, remain in off-chain repositories. The chain can then facilitate access to these repositories and data to provide proofs that they “are what they are supposed to be.”

Of course, there are other considerations to consider before joining a blockchain consortium, and in our next paper, we will take a more detailed look at the various issues of governance that members should address as part of their participation.

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