R3 Launches Enterprise Version of Corda Blockchain

Corda Enterprise is designed specifically to meet the needs of companies and allows firms to directly build applications into the network.

Richard Gendal Brown, CTO of R3, says businesses have particular requirements, so a version was needed that made them feel more secure when using blockchain.

“Corda… can be used in production in many enterprise use cases,” Brown says. “However, for institutions with existing IT estates and complex infrastructures, Corda Enterprise has been specifically optimized for their requirements. It offers a range of additional features that make it the most resilient, secure and efficient enterprise blockchain platform available.”

He says Corda Enterprise offers value-added features, functionality, and support including the ability to operate on public blockchain networks without requiring much change to security configurations.

Corda Enterprise has interoperability with the more commercial Corda, meaning applications or messages from either blockchain network can be interchanged. Businesses can choose which version of Corda best suits their needs.

R3 already has live applications for the insurance, healthcare and shipping industries, and more are expected to be released. Other applications from Finastra, Tradewind Markets, and TradeIX that are live on Corda are also going to be live on Corda Enterprise.

Corda Enterprise includes a Blockchain Application Firewall, which allows applications on the blockchain to reside within data centers while still being able to communicate securely with other nodes through a public network.

“Traditional corporate security policies are not suited for the concept of peer-to-peer networking and are likely to mandate the use of a firewall to separate company intranets from the internet,” Brown says. “To enable safe peer-to-peer enterprise networking, we created the Blockchain Application Firewall—the only one of its kind—which not only allows secure operation of Corda nodes from inside the corporate firewall, but also provides an additional level of security for a firm’s blockchain system by validating the identity of connecting peers before any messages reach the node.”

It will also be able to integrate with Oracle and SQL databases and is compatible with different networks.