At DevCon 2018, Ben Chevallereau, Sr. Architect at Armedia, presented how to use blockchain to secure an accounts-payable transaction using an enterprise content management system (e.g., Alfresco) to store the content.  Ben gave a brief overview of blockchain and then walked the user through a secure transaction of verifying an invoice before issuing a payment.  A blockchain is a distributed ledger of transactions or records, called blocks, that are linked and secured using cryptography.

Using Ethereum as a blockchain platform for smart contracts, Ben demonstrated a practical way of using blockchain in accounts payable, invoice management, procurement and other content-rich transactions.  Figure 1 provides a component architecture to help us understand how the various technologies work together in this demonstration.  Using an event-based architecture, decoupled components publish and listen to events to create a highly secure ecosystem for transactions.

Figure 1: Smart contract component architecture using blockchain

Ben demonstrated how a set of open source technologies can be used to increase your security posture taking advantage of the blockchain.  Understanding the real threats in cyber warfare, organizations are increasingly looking for strategies and techniques to balance the advantages of engaging partners and customers outside the network with the understanding that entities with malintent exist around the world and with enough time and desire they can pose real threats.

Ben wrapped up with practical applications of using blockchain in records management and case management solutions like ArkCase.

Armedia has been working with blockchain for a few years and welcomes the opportunity to learn from you and discuss your use cases and how we can help.  Let us know if this blog was helpful or what you would like for us to discuss next on this topic.

Reference:

• Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu3WikhdQ0M
• Link to presentation: https://www.slideshare.net/benjaminchevallereau/alfresco-blockchain