[Guest Post] Will Blockchain Help Streamline Data Management?

by Rae Steinbach

The digital age has obviously yielded major benefits for businesses. That said, keeping up with technological shifts can be challenging. A major struggle organizations often face is data management. Solutions businesses may have relied on in the past are no longer sufficient for managing large volumes of data.

Even relatively new approaches, such as using third-party cloud storage providers, aren’t ideal. A business that entrusts a third party with its data must be confident that data is secure. This isn’t always guaranteed. On top of that, cloud storage systems can’t always be relied upon to perform quickly enough to meet the needs of customers.

Organizations must consider stronger data management solutions that offer enhanced security and reliability. For example, your business may be working on healthcare app development. Once you get the platform off the ground, it’s likely that you’ll be storing large amounts of private patient data. Security is paramount in a situation like this. Luckily, blockchain has the potential to solve this problem.

Why Blockchain is Ideal for Data Management

Blockchain involves storing data over a distributed network of nodes instead of storing it centrally. This offers major benefits to large businesses.

Security is one of the more noteworthy advantages of adopting blockchain data management. Because data is distributed across a network of nodes, it’s less vulnerable to hacking. Hackers would have to compromise each node within the network, which is a very difficult task.

Additionally, entries made in a blockchain database can’t be deleted. This guards against unauthorized modifications.

It’s also possible to enhance blockchain databases. For instance, the process of “sharding” is beneficial to organizations emphasizing the importance of privacy.

Sharding involves distributing fragments of files (instead of whole files) across nodes. That means those who possess these individual fragments can’t actually access the full data.

Swarming is another technique which can improve the performance of blockchain data management systems. By grouping nodes into clusters based on location, swarming ensures the network will always perform reliably.

In swarming, nodes may download the necessary file shards from multiple sources. This offers yet another benefit that centralized data storage solutions can’t offer. If a node “goes down” for any reason, users can still retrieve the data. This isn’t the case with centralized storage databases. These typically require periodic maintenance, during which the system can’t function.

It’s easy to understand why tech-savvy business leaders are pushing for the development of blockchain storage systems. Again, organizations need solutions that can keep pace with technological developments. Businesses are generating record daily amounts of data. It’s become apparent that methods such as third party cloud storage aren’t strong enough anymore. Blockchain provides a reliable and secure alternative.

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Author Bio

Rae is a graduate of Tufts University with a combined International Relations and Chinese degree. After spending time living and working abroad in China, she returned to NYC to pursue her career and continue curating quality content. Rae is passionate about travel, food, and writing, of course.