Blockchain as a Service

Chapter 4. Architecture of a BaaS Application

BaaS simplifies planning a blockchain application because it supplies easy access to many of the technical components, with accompanying technical support. But the technical components are only one layer of a successful blockchain application. After planning your business use case, the next critical step is considering the flow of your BaaS application.

According to Paige Krieger of IBM, “Once you’ve decided on your use case, then you can hold a design thinking workshop, onsite or at one of our IBM Garage locations. It’s where you map out your whole process from start to finish. It seems mundane at first, but it is important because that’s when everybody in the group starts to realize that you’re focusing on the end-user experience of your blockchain application, and then working backwards.”

Paige added, “Design thinking methodology isn’t just an IBM thing, but it’s a practice that we’ve seen a lot of success with, and we encourage all customers to go through it so they can be sure that the use case they are pursuing is the right one.” If you want to create your own design thinking workshop, there are many online resources to help you to succeed.

In this chapter, we will look at considerations for determining the architecture for your BaaS application, including security, data handling where privacy law applies, types of client software for working with the data in the blockchain application, and implementing a standalone versus integrated ...