2016-10-27

Beauty of #blockchain – ugovor dorozhe deneg (contract is more important than money)

There is a Russian proverb “Ugovor dorozhe deneg” which means “Contractual agreement is more important than money”. Breaking a contract is a huge risk (reputational, financial, etc.) that is difficult to “pay back”. Also, having business with an unknown business party may be a high risk because of anti money laundering.

The key of doing business properly is a contract that is an agreement with specific terms between two or more business parties in which there is a commitment to do something in return for a valuable benefit known as consideration ( see “Digital-contract-as-a-process enables business in the digital world at http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2016/07/digital-contract-as-process-enables.html ).

Blockchain (as the best, so far, records storage) provides integrity and traceability (see “Beauty of #blockchain - doveryai, no proveryai (trust but verify)” http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2016/10/beauty-of-blockchain-doveryai-no.html ). This is a mandatory component of digital contracts as enablers of the safe digital economy, but not sufficient one. Let us see in a few following scenarios what is missing yet for the trustful sharing of data and documents in digital business transactions within digital contracts.

Variant 1 - P2P anonymous


As simple as giving a few coins to a poor person.


Variant 2 - P2P with zero-knowledge proof


Transaction participants may verify that their counterparts are a real and respectable person. In case of problems with a transaction, its participants can be reveal by court’s request.


Variant 3 – simple B2B


Some documents (e.g. offer, payments, certificates of digital assets, etc.) must be exchanged between participants. Thus they must be managed properly within each transaction by specialised “chains” as docs-chain and assets-chain. Their lifecycles are bounded by the relevant transaction. Actually, they are temporary secured storages that may use the blockchain for storing digital hashes of their content (see also “Electronic Health Records ( #EHR ) implementation with #blockchain, #BPM, #ECM and #platform” http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2016/07/electronic-health-records-ehr.html ).

Of course, the best contract is a digital one ( see again “Digital-contract-as-a-process enables business in the digital world at http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2016/07/digital-contract-as-process-enables.html ).



Variant 4 – B2B and partners


If the PartyB has a partner (PartnerB1) to produce PartyB’s goods then some documents from the PartnerB1 may be embedded (like a Russian doll) into the documents from the PartyB. In some cases, such documents may be anonymised.


Variant 5 – Supply Chain (SC)


As firms now rely on ecosystem partners for many of the functions once done in-house, one of their major organizational challenges is how to best manage their increasingly complex operations across a network of interconnected companies. Distributed operations can lead to increased risks, unanticipated consequences and new kinds of serious frictions. ( from http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2016/10/14/blockchains-and-the-promise-of-more-frictionless-trusted-economies/ )

To be able to run comprehensive monitoring and, potentially, some global optimisation, all the partners, all related data and all related documents must be in one secured storage of records, ideally, blockchain-based.


Conclusion

By looking at those variants, it is prudent to say that blockchain is only one of many serious issues to be addressed and architecture together to enables the digital economy. Fortunately, the current hype around blockchain is accelerating the better understanding of many things to be done together and, I hope, in well architected way.





Thanks,
AS

2016-10-19

Enterprise Patterns: EASE #entarch

This pattern “Enterprise Architecture Services Engagement (EASE)” is a continuation of the enterprise pattern ADAGIO ( http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2015/12/enterprise-patterns-adagio-entarch.html ).


Architecture Delivery services

  1. Impact analysis (Evaluate implementability of any enterprise-wide or departmental initiative)
  2. Solution analysis and design service (Contribute strongly to solution analysis, selection, integration and evolution)
  3. Solution and Platforms life cycle assurance service (Give confidence and guaranty on implemented platforms and solutions)

Architecture Governance services


  1. Architecture vision, strategy and roadmap service (Anticipate a 2-3 years enterprise-as-system and its solutions evolution)
  2. Architecture policy and regulation service (Supply rules and regulations, to ensure sustainability and global coherency)
  3. Architecture validation service (Ensure enterprise-as-a-system compliance to rules and regulations)

Innovation & Optimisation services


  1. Technology watch service (Follow existing and new technologies important for the enterprise)
  2. Technology-enable improvements service (Propose and prototype how the enterprise can benefit from the technology progress)
  3. Internal consulting service (Engage with anyone from the enterprise to apply the EA knowledge to improve operations)

Maintenance services


Architectures are the primary artefacts of EA functioning thus require explicit maintenance.
  1. Architecture repository maintenance service (Capitalise knowledge for impact analysis and coherency management)
  2. Business architecture maintenance service (Give a common understanding of the organisation and its processes)
  3. Application architecture maintenance service (Provide the means to influence design decisions and/or to use proven solutions)
  4. Data/Information/Content architecture maintenance service (Provide models and conditions to manage collected, stored and transformed data)
  5. Security layer maintenance service (Ensure cross-coherency with others layers)
  6. Infrastructure layer maintenance service (Ensure cross-coherency with others layer)

Thanks,
AS

2016-10-07

Beauty of #blockchain - doveryai, no proveryai (trust but verify) for voting at the digital age

The aim of this document is to provide a big picture of voting with the use of various modern technologies, primarily #blockchain. This technology is ideal to implement the “doveryai, no proveryai” (trust but verify) principle to achieve the trust.

1 Basic concepts


Each vote sheet has its unique ID which has its address in the Voting BlockChain (VBC) as VBC-ref1, which also encoded as QR-code-1.

2 Remote voting through the Internet


A Registered Voter (RV) receives a Voting Sheet (VS) via a secured channel or in a secured envelope.

The RV using a Server-Less App (SLA) in his/her internet browser.

RV: 
  • Opens the VS
  • Fills it
  • Hits the button “FILLED”
SLA: 
  • Uploads the VS and some metadata into the VBC at VBC-ref1
  • Asks the VC to verify the voting results at VBC-ref1
RV: 
  • Scans QR-code1 (e.g. mobile) to see the voting results at VBC-ref1 (optional)
  • Hits “OK” (and may save VBC-ref1)
SLA: 
  • Starts a smart-contract to release VBC-ref1 to the voting authorities AFTER the ballot period is over
RV: 
  • Closes the SLA

Voilà!

3 Physical presence voting

Still a secret.


Thanks,
AS