Microsoft today announced that they are joining Enterprise Ethereum Alliance as a launch partner. Enterprise Ethereum Alliance will build, promote, and broadly support Ethereum-based technology best practices, standards, and a reference architecture, EntEth 1.0. Microsoft is also today making the first reference implementations of Ethereum available in a public cloud. Ethereum and Enterprise Ethereum are supported by Azure middleware services like Cryptlets, Azure Active Directory for Identity, data services via Cortana Analytics Suite, Key Vault for key management, operations and deployment. Enterprise customers can now deploy their own implementation of this platform on Azure.

Ethereum is a blockchain-based, general purpose decentralized application platform, enabling smart contract functionality. It employs the Ethereum Virtual Machine and the Solidity programming language to directly implement and execute peer-to-peer and multiparty agreements among other applications. This technology facilitates more efficient and secure transactions without centralized intermediation. Notably, Ethereum blockchain technology will improve banking trade settlement latency, increase transparency in supply chains, and create peer-to-peer markets where intermediaries typically were previously needed between counterparties.

“At Microsoft, we are proud to be a founding member and board member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance to continue the advancement of enterprise-grade blockchain platforms. Participating with the Ethereum community to implement open standards will accelerate deployment of blockchain solutions. In addition, Microsoft Azure’s open, global scale cloud infrastructure and platform services provide fertile ground for the evolution of Ethereum into the enterprise,” said Marley Gray, Principal Architect, Azure Blockchain Engineering at Microsoft.