Amazon Managed Blockchain -Easily create and manage scalable blockchain networks | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Managed Blockchain -Easily create and manage scalable blockchain networks

aws.amazon.com

34 pointsirs23 comments

I'm much more excited about this new offering: https://aws.amazon.com/qldb/ (Disclaimer: I work at Amazon but not on AWS).

A "cryptographically verified transaction log" seems like a much better alternative for almost all private blockchain use cases I've seen (there aren't many that make sense).

It's cool that AWS offering a productized version of Ethereum for customers who want it, but I imagine once people get past the buzzwords, it makes much more sense to have something centralized, or use a secure public blockchain like Ethereum / Bitcoin for public auditing.

Agreed that QLDB makes sense for certain applications (voting). What is the purpose of a managed (centralized) blockchain? Can decentralized nodes nodes/parties be added to the network?

Disclaimer I am Ex-AWS and Ex-Amazon.

>“Blockchain makes it possible to build applications where multiple parties can execute transactions without the need for a trusted, central authority.“

Except in this case when it’s run by a central authority

So this is a centralized immutable database though Amazon?

This is old tech, but repackaged and marketed to people who 'want the blockchain'.

I think the only reason alt-coins exploded is that people had little understanding of how common databases were but lots of understanding of the explosion in Bitcoin Price.

QLDB is the old tech (which is useful for the majority of important centralizable applications). Managed Blockchain is hyperledger or (eventually) ethereum, managed deployment on AWS.

For the average developer just starting out, pick Aurora Serverless (MySQL or Postgres). It's probably all you will ever need. Relational databases are still the best general purpose thing out there.

Step 1: Integrate this into your product.

Step 2: Market your product based on Blockchain technology.

Step 3: Fasten your seatbelt while beeing on the hype train!

I'm in the early stage building https://nodablock.com/ that is pretty similar to Amazon Managed Blockchain. Excited to see them coming into that space!

So it seems this is in competition with the IBM Hyperledger offering. Does anybody know if the enterprise users of hyperledger prefer IBM's on-premise solution or are hyperledger deployments mostly happening in the cloud already anyways?

Given that most of these are at the POC stage still, I think AWS is generally a win (easy to spin up demos, do POCs, etc.), even if on-prem ends up being how you'd eventually want to deploy it.

I was more amused that the on-stage dude spent several minutes generally shitting on blockchain before announcing Managed Blockchain. (I tend to agree that non-currency non-subversive non-smartcontract apps generally don't require or benefit from blockchains.)

If the network is reachable from the outside and there are other block producing & validating nodes elsewhere, then this could be an interesting setup for enterprises after all it's a P2P network.

Sorry if this sounds rude, but please be sure to add a disclaimer that you work at Amazon if you're going to be posting recommendations for AWS products on HN.

It already seems like Amazon is astroturfing HN this week with the 12 AWS articles currently on the front page (with 8 of them being posted by a different Amazon employee), and it doesn't help if Amazon employees are posting recommendations while pretending they don't work there (your use of the phrase "they" when referring to Amazon is a little weird)

edit: You keep replying to this comment mentioning how you don't work there and don't have any ulterior motived, and then deleting it. Why? You do clearly work at Amazon based on your previous comments [1], which link to a GH profile that clearly says you work at Amazon.

Whether you work specifically for AWS or not, it's still a conflict of interest for an Amazon employee to be posting recommendations for Amazon products and pretending not to be. It would be appropriate if you added a disclaimer to your original comment.

edit: removing links to other user's profiles, etc

You're crossing into harassing another user here, which is not cool. Bringing in someone's extraneous personal details or history as ammunition is particularly not allowed on HN.

When people post a good, informative comment, it's important not to punish them for it. That trains the wrong behavior!

Believe me, we're as sensitive to HN getting spammed/astroturfed as you are. But there's an obvious explanation for all the Amazon stories today, and it's nothing nefarious: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18553686 and marked it off-topic.

Linking to a user's previous comment on this very website is "bringing in extraneous personal details"? I don't see how the fact that someone works at Amazon, when talking about Amazon products, is extraneous. It is very relevant to the discussion.

Prior to my edit, the user posted a comment claiming that they didn't work there, which was a lie, and yet they were deceptively still promoting Amazon products. That fits the very definition of astroturfing.

Believe me, I don't want to discourage good, informative comments either, and I tried to be polite when calling the user out, but this was a pretty clear cut case of astroturfing. Even if not having nefarious intent, it's still contributing to HN being a big billboard ad for AWS.

Yes, that really is bringing in extraneous personal details and it is a step into harassment. Most people's personal info is scattered over the internet, including on HN. If you go looking, you can dig things up on almost anyone. Bringing those back into a different context to get the upper hand in an argument is a breach of HN's rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

I wouldn't call that comment astroturfing, either. HN has lots of employees who work for tech companies, and if they know about something, it's good for HN if they share the knowledge. The commenter was merely expressing a personal preference for one technology over another.

The definition of "extraneous" is "irrelevant or unrelated to the subject being dealt with". The user was talking about Amazon. How can the fact that they work at Amazon be irrelevant or unrelated?

> Bringing those back into a different context to get the upper hand in an argument is a breach of civility.

Is it, though? I'm just thinking of applying that same argument to other situations in life and I don't know if it works. Is it a "breach of civility" for employers to look at your past work experience before hiring you? Is it a "breach of civility" for voters to consider the past political record of candidates when evaluating them for office?

I would argue that bringing in historical information from a user's past discussions is not "bringing those back into a different context", it is enhancing the current context. Mentioning that a user works at a company, while in a discussion about that company, is providing additional useful context to that discussion.

> I wouldn't call that comment astroturfing, either.

We can agree to disagree then, I suppose. The definition of astroturfing is "the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants." Again, that fits, to a tee, what the user was doing. He attempted to mask the sponsor of the message by lying about not working for Amazon.

I'll agree with you that I shouldn't have called him out in a comment. I put it in a comment because I wanted to give him a chance to edit his comment rather than his whole comment being hidden/removed (since his comment did provide good info), but perhaps should have just flagged it or emailed you instead. This interaction doesn't give me much faith that anything would be done about it, though.

The most valuable attribute of HN this week has been discussions with Amazon people about services announced at reInvent. It's surprising to me that anyone would think to complain about that happening.

Does that not reinforce the idea that the fact that those aforementioned people work at Amazon is very relevant?

Not to me? People can mention it if they want. All I care about is that people have firsthand knowledge of these services. I don't care much how they got that knowledge.

In the comment just prior to this you said the most valuable part of HN was "Amazon people". Now you're saying it's irrelevant to you if they are "Amazon people" or not?

I guess I'm very confused at what you're trying to say.

Replace "Amazon people" with "people knowledgeable about these services".

By 'extraneous' I mean bringing something in from another context. When people do that with someone's personal details in an argument, that escalates the confrontation greatly, whether the detail is relevant or not.

I think what you're missing is that the dynamics of an internet forum are quite fragile, and call for special rules if the forum isn't to degenerate completely. It's not the same as other situations in life.

Let me rephrase: is it not also a breach of civility for a user to lie about having a conflict of interest when promoting a product on this forum? And is it not allowing the forum to "degenerate completely" if said users are allowed to lie with no recourse?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com