Google Cloud on Thursday unveiled Blockchain Node Engine – a fully managed service for Web3 developers that want to build and manage products for blockchain-based platforms. Experts wonder if this Google and ETH collab will be beneficial. Cryptocurrency giant Ethereum will be the first platform supported by the new service. "Blockchain is changing the way the world stores and moves its information," Google's Amit Zavery and James Tromans wrote in a blog post, explaining the company's interest in supporting Web3 developers.
Web3 refers to the next iteration of the World Wide Web based on decentralized platforms. Blockchain, meanwhile, is a technology pioneered by Bitcoin that could prove to be the foundation for Web3.
Blockchains consist of transaction data that is permanently stored and encrypted. Instead of relying on a central entity to validate and store data, a blockchain comprises nodes – a device, like a computer or a server, that contains a full copy of the blockchain's transaction history. Nodes on a blockchain form a peer-to-peer network, with all of the nodes up to date and in sync. This gives everyone on the blockchain control over the veracity of the data – making it a decentralized network.
Today, manually deploying a node is a time-intensive process that involves provisioning a compute instance, installing an Ethereum client, and waiting for the node to sync with the network. Syncing a full node from the first block can take several days. Google Cloud's Blockchain Node Engine can make this process faster and easier by allowing developers to deploy a new node with a single operation, and specify the desired region and network (mainnet, testnet).
Customers that wish to secure their blockchain infrastructures currently have a limited set of options in the market. Blockchain Node Engine offers security configurations that can help prevent unauthorized access to the nodes. By placing nodes behind a Virtual Private Cloud firewall, only trusted machines and users are able to communicate with client endpoints.
With Blockchain Node Engine, developers will be able to deploy a new node with a single operation, and they can specify the desired region and network. By comparison, manually deploying a node requires provisioning a compute instance, installing an Ethereum client, and waiting for the node to sync with the network. "Syncing a full node from the first block (i.e., "genesis") can take several days," Google's blog post said.
To ensure availability, Google Cloud actively monitors the nodes and restarts them if anything goes wrong – DevOps teams don't have to stand by for outages. The service also offers security assurances, placing nodes behind a VPC firewall and using Google services such as Cloud Armor to protect nodes from DDoS attacks.
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