The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) recently announced a partnership with Whiteblock Inc., one of the world’s first blockchain testing and development companies and an EEA member, to provide a testing environment for the EEA global membership base.

As part of the partnership, the EEA will utilize the Whiteblock Genesis testing platform to manage and deploy the official test network of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.

The Whiteblock Genesis platform provides an end-to-end blockchain testing and development software as a service.

About The New EEA TestNet

The EEA TestNet will serve as a sandbox for the EEA’s global business community allowing the Enterprise Ethereum community to build, collaborate, and test next-generation Ethereum business applications. By creating a development and testing sandbox, the EEA TestNet will enable businesses to experiment with new ways to deliver customer value using Ethereum. The TestNet will provide a global and innovative testing environment without EEA members being slowed by the operational costs of typically associated with live testing sandboxes. Additionally, early testing will prepare businesses to take advantage of the EEA’s Certification Program when launched later this year.

Interview with Whiteblock, EEA, and PegaSys

ConsenSys is a member of the Working Group supporting the TestNet launch and so we sat down for an interview with some of the key individuals involved:

Zak Cole, Whiteblock CEO and EEA TestNet and Certification Working Group Chair

Paul DiMarzio, EEA Director of Community

Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director, Hyperledger and EEA Associate Member

Dan Heyman, EEA member and Head of PegaSys at ConsenSys

Arash Mahboubi, Product Manager for PegaSys

Can you explain the importance of the EEA TestNet and how it will benefit the Enterprise Ethereum community moving forward?

Paul Dimarzio: The EEA TestNet is provisioned on the “One of the other big distinctions is the EEA Testing and Certification Working Group provides central coordination of the test network’s operations, enabling us to guide members collaboratively as part of the working group. So it’s much more than just a TestNet. It’s kind of a managed service, essentially. Using the Whiteblock Genesis platform, we can automate test network processes and the overhead for managing the infrastructure of the test network. EEA members don’t necessarily need to run their own nodes. Instead, they can interact through Metamask or any one of the endpoints that the EEA TestNet provides. Businesses also have access to all of the data. Since it is a controlled test network, the EEA TestNet is able to observe every node in the network and collect all of the data efficiently. Plus, the collected data itself is granular enough to drive deeper insight that we wouldn’t be able to otherwise acquire through a public network.”

Zak Cole: “The EEA TestNet is provisioned on the Whiteblock Genesis platform. The value of this is that members of the EEA can freely participate, while having the support of the EEA Testing and Certification Working Group. EEA members can implement different scenarios on any particular cadence or schedule. Plus, the EEA Testing and Certification Working Group can iron out exactly what’s going to be required in order to develop a certification and conformance testing program, as well as the best practices for building and participating within Ethereum, from a business perspective.”

How will the EEA TestNet spur overall adoption?

Paul DiMarzio: “The focal point of the EEA is interoperability; making sure that systems, products or applications can be built to interoperate with any other Ethereum-based system, product, or application. The TestNet is a great environment in which our members can work collaboratively towards achieving that interoperability.”

Zak Cole: “Just like enterprises looked to plan cloud migration 10 years ago, we anticipate that over the next five years, organizations big and small are going to want to plan their blockchain or distributed ledger technology migration. Because there are so many different use cases for different organizations, the EEA wants to provide the tools that help businesses and organizations understand the value of this technology. The EEA TestNet provides this resource, enabling businesses to better understand how to build on top of Ethereum, integrate with their legacy systems, and work within the EEA working group on how to build new applications.

By offering a constantly running TestNet using the Genesis platform, the EEA TestNet enables members to define their own scenarios, introduce their own nodes, and deploy Dapps. The EEA TestNet will also provide Metamask support and full data and analytics capabilities. Plus, Whiteblock’s established testing methodology and tooling bring proven to accurately test complex networks at scale.”

Read the full interview on ConsenSys.net →