Microsoft’s embrace of the Ethereum ecosystem continues to steadily grow.
The tech leader shared on Friday that it is incorporating blockchain development resources from Truffle into its ecosystem. Truffle These tools, which began their journey as a part of Ethereum-focused ConsenSys before becoming standalone this year, are now on Azure's cloud platform.
Truffle's profile on Azure now highlights its role in simplifying Ethereum development for businesses:
“Truffle offers an integrated environment for creating, testing, and deploying smart contracts on Ethereum, aiming to streamline the process for developers. With Truffle, you have tools for compiling smart contracts, linking, deploying, and managing binaries, alongside automated testing with Mocha and Chai.”
According to Microsoft, Azure users have been benefiting from Truffle's features since the previous month. Impressively, before being available on Microsoft's cloud, the tools had already hit nearly 3 million downloads. Azure's comprehensive suite of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS offerings now includes innovative blockchain solutions like Truffle.
Discussing the collaboration, Azure's Blockchain Engineering chief Marc Mercuri noted their strategic and purposeful approach:
“We see immense potential in blockchain technology. This isn't a direction we're pursuing due to external demands.”
The essence of this move? Microsoft is enabling more streamlined access for its enterprise clients to both public and private iterations of Ethereum.
Microsoft's Latest Open-Source Venture: VeriSol
Integrating Truffle with Azure marks Microsoft's newest venture centered around Ethereum.
Earlier in the month, Microsoft's Research and Azure Blockchain teams unveiled their open-source release of a groundbreaking verification tool, VeriSol. Specifically designed to bolster security and prepare Solidity-written smart contracts for production, VeriSol steps into the spotlight.
Much like Truffle, VeriSol aims to expedite and ease Ethereum development. Microsoft’s Cody Born, Senior Software Engineer at Azure, emphasized at the time:
“VeriSol facilitates faster iteration with its automatic, consistent checks, catching bugs promptly without risking user impact.”
This development is a significant boon for Ethereum’s segment in the crypto space, where both individuals and companies can now tap into VeriSol’s security enhancements. Given Ethereum smart contracts’ immutable nature, VeriSol's role in identifying potential bugs mitigates future editing needs.
JP Morgan's Quorum: Now Supported by Microsoft Azure
In a move announced in May, Microsoft has joined forces with JP Morgan to integrate strategic partnership JP Morgan’s permissioned Ethereum fork, Quorum, as the debut blockchain in Azure’s Blockchain Service.
The rationale? To eliminate the need for companies to manage their infrastructure to develop Quorum-based applications.
This is becoming more relevant as JP Morgan's Quorum-driven Interbank Information Network Interbank Information Network (IIN) already boasts over 200 member institutions, some of which might soon develop their own projects using the enterprise-grade blockchain that might be spun off by JP Morgan.
Interest in Quorum solutions could expand if JP Morgan’s upcoming digital asset, JPM Coin JPM Coin, gains traction. Utilizing Quorum, JPM Coin's tokens will be backed by fiat deposits at the banking giant.
An important note is that the Truffle suite is compatible with Quorum, offering JP Morgan’s collaborators the ability to use these tools for JPM Coin and IIN-driven applications.
