Ethereum Proof-of-Authority for Blockchain on Azure

Microsoft already released a proof-of-work platform and it was popular so quickly and it was a great help to get feedback for their latest release Ethereal proof-of-authority.

The mechanism behind Ethereum is Sybil-resistant and it allows computation cost to be controlled and also allow fair participation. This mechanism is suggested to use in anonymous or open networks for security on the crypto currency competition. But when it comes to private networks or consortium networks, existing ether is not valuable. Proof of authority is more efficient because, no need to mine and Byzantine fault tolerance.

How it works

The theory is very simple. Each and every node will have a unique ID because it is important to keep alive the relative consensus nodes if a node goes down. Since high availability is a must in network, each node run multiple times to ensure high availability. By using Identity leasing system azure make sure that 2 or more nodes won’t have same ID at the same time. In a VM failure or regional outage new nodes can quickly get the existing Ids and start running.

Platform independent

Ethereum is platform independent and every developer can join hands to work with this. Currently most developers work on C, C++, Python and Rust.

Azure Monitor

To check the node health and issues, users can configure azure monitor. Not only that, user can visualize the network statistic as well. If there is any outage network operators can quickly detect it and deny the fix the issue. And for developers can get statistic about block generations for block chains.

Extensible governance

Even the members want to participate in a consortium but don’t want to manage the network Members would like to participate in a consortium yet, they don’t like to maintain or manage their network infrastructure. As a solution, Azure has divided network and consortium in to two separate parts and user can governance both separately and can select the network operator as their likeness.

For the deployments of authority, Governance DApp is helpful and it does voting and validator delegation.

Ex: MetaMask in-browser wallet, Ledger hardware wallet, or Azure Key Vault with ECC signing.

Governance DApp features

·        Decentralized governance - Network changes will be detected by on-chain voting for selected admins.

·        Validator delegation - Privileged users able to validate the nodes in each PoA deployment.

·        Auditable change history - Each and every activity will be saved