Strategic Alliance Magazine Q1 2018 - 23

THE C HAN GIN G FACE OF DATA

IBM, a leader in blockchain technology, is actively involved in creating blockchain networks as well as
collaborating with more than 100 startups, new tech
companies, entrepreneurs, and existing IBM partners
and clients. The networks use the open source Hyperledger Fabric with the IBM Blockchain platform built
on top. Security, encryption, governance, and privacy
are configured by the user.
"It's permanent and encrypted at each block of the
journey through the chain, so it is much more protected," enthuses Janine Grasso, vice president, strategy
and ecosystem development for IBM Blockchain. "Using blockchain will absolutely make the data within
much more secure" than present data protection systems, she adds.
The framework is tailor made. Like individualized healthcare, blockchain networks must be constructed in unique
arrangements depending on the needs of the various partnering entities. "Blockchain only hit the mainstream in
2017. We're still learning, and it's still evolving with different companies in the ecosystem," says Grasso. "It's moving
faster than we even anticipated. Because there are so many
different ways we can apply the technology, it's making us
rethink ways for partners and consumers to adopt it."
She offers an example: In 2016, IBM and Walmart saw
the need for creating a solution for the food industry
that provides a clear trail in the event of contamination. They started a pilot with Dole, Kroger,
Unilever-a total of nine food industry giants-to explore how blockchain technology could be used to
trace potential food contamination from source to shelf.
A mango grown in South America touches many points
on its way to the store shelf as it goes through transportation, distribution, and retail points, she explains. "If it
becomes contaminated, it would take weeks, even
months, to figure out where it came from. With IBM's
blockchain solution, it can be determined where that
mango came from in seconds, and what shelf it's on."
In terms of multi-partner collaborations, "the answer
is blockchain," emphasizes NetApp's Long. "It's the biggest change you will see in multi-industry collaborations
... the most pervasive, multi-company digital security
that is emerging on the market, the most pervasive tech
that will transform the digital market we've had in the
industry since the Internet. It is non-infrastructure de-

"You can't discount
cultural headwinds,
uplift, or tail winds if
people resist change."
-Tony DeSpirito, CSAP,
Schneider Electric
pendent. It can be run through any platform. It takes the
authentication and the data chain and makes it available
across all different kinds of industries. It basically eliminates single point of failure."
Think about before the Internet, when you went to telecommunication providers and bought a communication
line that was connected to other lines in a point-to-point
environment, Long explains. "When one point failed, there
was no way to get around it. What evolved out of that was
the routing protocol, which guaranteed that you could always get to where you wanted to go, because if there were
blocks in the path, the software in the routes would route
around that block. When the Internet came along, all communication protocols were on the grid. Blockchain is a
data communication protocol-the blockchains are secure
in their own right, and if someone tries to hack it, they can't
do it. You can't break the chain. And those chains are populated all over the data communication infrastructure, so
there are copies of it in other places," he adds.
"If you look at trust boundaries, blockchain is a great
answer to how to approach malware," Sivasankaran
adds. "You contain the problem within specific trust
boundaries, so only a portion of the ecosystem gets impacted. Blockchain is one tool in the arsenal."
Finding failsafe tools "is not easy," he continues. "Even
with one organization, it's difficult to adapt and put
the right tools in place. Multi-party collaborations get
more complicated."
Q1 * 2018 | STRATEGIC ALLIANCE MAGAZINE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine Q1 2018