Ambrosus and IBM: Everything you need to know
Previously, I have focused on Ambrosus as they compare to other supply chain projects in the cryptocurrency space. For this specific article, I want to briefly yet thoroughly discuss how Ambrosus compares to private blockchain solutions, such as that proposed by IBM. The main areas that I wish to compare center upon: 1) functionality — the difference between a private and public blockchain, 2) scope and future potential, and 3) cost effectiveness. What I have found, is that Ambrosus is the most fitting supply chain solution due to its consumer orientation and widespread applicability in light of its minimal costs.
The Public vs. Private Debate
Amidst talk of decentralization, it is very common for one to reference the distinction between a public or private blockchain. Ambrosus, is a decentralized public blockchain. What that means is that the Ambrosus Network (AMB-NET) is operated by a diverse number of masternodes, each in charge of fulfilling a different yet necessary function. Apollo Nodes validate transactions, Hermes Nodes bundle data onto the network, and Atlas Nodes secure and store such data. While a company can decide what kinds of data they wish to put onto the Ambrosus Network, all the meta-data of a particular product will be publicly available for any person to analyze via the Ambrosus explorer. In this sense, AMB-NET itself is not controlled by anyone in particular — the trust in the system has been effectively diffused between all of the relevant masternode operators. Any individual, government, or company can see all of the information that has been made public on AMB-NET, and any company that chooses to use the network must value transparency and wish to display certain features of their products.
In contrast to the decentralized public blockchain operated by Ambrosus, IBM offers the services of their very own private blockchain. This blockchain is not publicly accessible: it is kept under IBM’s privacy for the internal use of only the client companies that wish to utilize it. In this sense, the IBM blockchain is merely a logistics solution: any guarantee of ‘quality assurance’ or consumer oriented information is withheld by companies. The network is centralized insofar as the data managers, data validators, and data producers are all parties with a financial interest in the system. There is no third party accountability that can check the data or information put onto the network. Ultimately, the much desired trust that blockchain provides, is entirely disregarded through the use of an improved logistics management system held and operated by a group of self-incentivized companies.
IBM running a blockchain and saying you can trust it, is like Twitter running a media platform and saying you have free speech. Of course you can talk, but at any point in time you can also be banned, or your comments can be removed. From my perspective, this is not the best way to go in the context of product authenticity and quality assurance.
Scope and Future Potential
The second fundamental difference between IBM and Ambrosus is the scope of each company’s respective solutions. IBM offers a blockchain platform as a service, through the IBM cloud. In this sense, the IBM solution is not end-to-end. A holistic end-to-end solution as that pioneered by Ambrosus requires the necessary security and expertise not only in relation to a blockchain platform, but also in relation to the hardware sensors and IoT devices used to secure the data recorded on the blockchain.
Ambrosus has created their own Innovation Laboratory, in order to provide companies and consumers with such a holistic solution to the quality and data management of their products. In the Innovation Laboratory the hardware end of the ecosystem is taken care of.
Beyond this initial difference however, Ambrosus is building a dynamic ecosystem for developers and entrepreneurs to leverage in order to expand Ambrosus’ overall scope and reach. Due to the decentralized nature of the Ambrosus ecosystem, and the already completed SDK’s on the Ambrosus Network, dApp developers have a much easier time building new solutions for new industries. No gatekeepers need to be crossed, as all data available for application development is already publicly accessible on the Ambrosus Network.
Cost Effectiveness
Finally, in relation to cost effectiveness the following should be said: Ambrosus charges $12 USD per bundle of data stored on the network. Each bundle contains within it 16,000 + assets and events. As such if we do the math, and divide $12 USD by 16,000 (12.00/16,000) the cost per sensor reading comes out to be: $0.00075 USD. This means that one penny can provide 13 sensor readings ($0.01/.00075=13.3).
Now if we compare this with IBM’s ‘Food Trust’ solution, we can see the following:
What should be noticed first and foremost, is that these prices are highly deceptive. The costs listed are considered to be ‘starting’ at the listed price per month. Additionally, notice how the bar on the far right discusses that training material and resources will cost a company $5,000 USD initially. Meanwhile, ‘Standard Support’ is considered an additional $3,500 USD a month. And further, all of this is only for very basic track, trace, and recall capabilities on the software end. Companies will have to figure out what kind of a hardware solution they need on their own and at their own cost.
Ambrosus is able to provide a cheaper solution to tracking and tracing, all the while offering much more than merely tracking and tracing (e.g. composition analysis). They also connect companies with hardware providers that manufacture Ambrosus certified tamper-proof sensors.
In the words of Vlad Trifa in Ambrosus’ most recent AMA:
“Question 51: So how does the Ambrosus solution compare cost wise to the Hyper-ledger solution?
Vlad: Yeah, so first you don’t need to hire very expensive consultants like some big companies do when you want to use their blockchain solution. Ours is essentially open source. There is no license fee or anything, so from a company’s perspective if you want to use Ambrosus, you have a very fixed, and a very easy and a very clear model of a bundle costing $12 USD and a bundle is 16,000 plus events or assets, and that gives you a very, very simple pricing model that means you can create a few million assets and events per month with a few thousand dollars in bundle upload fees, and that is all there is to worry about. So I don’t think any corporate solution, and certainly not other projects have such a clear predictable and easy to understand from a business perspective — few on pricing.
Overall, I think the contrasts should become very clear: with IBM you get a corporate software solution from a company with a known name (I guess that counts for something). The blockchain is not ‘trusted’ by consumers, and the solution is ultimately oriented towards company’s logistics systems. Companies are left on their own to finding hardware devices, and they must pay additional costs to have experts connect the systems together.
With Ambrosus you get the cheapest software solution on the market accompanied by the required hardware devices. The blockchain is public and decentralized, and as such it can be used as a consumer marketing tool to build brand awareness — on top of mere logistics usage. Finally, a company can use Ambrosus to do much more than basic track and trace — with high tech biosensors, Ambrosus allows for detailed composition analysis of products’ internal conditions as well.
In the age of massive corporations, fraudulent food supply chains, and now blockchain, it shouldn’t be a hard decision about which choice is the best for everyone overall.
Disclaimer: None of this should be taken as investment advice. Consult with a professional and do your own research prior to investing.
