Bluzelle: Decentralized Database as a Service- Analysis & Review
Overview
Bluzelle is a blockchain based database as a service. Bluzelle is powered by the Bluzelle Harvesting Agent (BHA), which is a single piece of software that resides on every node in the network. Bluzelle supports an easy transition from the traditional Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). Bluzelle uses a modified version of the Raft consensus protocol, which determines the leader node in a swarm.
Website: https://bluzelle.com/
Token: BLZ is the External Token used for trading, BNT is the internal token used for the service. BLZ can be transferred to BNT
Capital Structure
The total supply of BLZ tokens is 500,000,000. The circulating supply is 182,940,941 as of June 11th, 2018. Bluzelle raised $19.5 million from the sale of 33% of their tokens. The diagram below is from the token sale white paper and displays the specific allocation of BLZ.
The Problem and Solution
Bluzelle outlines the problem and solution in its token sale whitepaper: most blockchains like Ethereum are not designed for efficient data storage. Bluzelle will enable dApp developers to work on secure projects at scale.
Decentralized databases having no points of failure minimizes security risks and outages. Applications being expensive to scale is one of the main reasons they fail. When a service provider is vague in its pricing model and daily costs it leaves developers with unforeseen costs. Not only does Bluzelle enable efficient scalability both horizontally and vertically, but the use of the BNT token for the service will eliminate any cost ambiguity.
The Cloud Database and Database as a service market is being targeted by Bluzelle at an opportune time. As detailed by the token sale whitepaper: “According to Markets and Markets, this industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 67.30% to $14.05 billion by 2019”. The key vendors in this market are Amazon, Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft. The Bluzelle team has already shown intent to seek strategic partnerships with Heroku, Amazon, Microsoft, Redhat, and Google.
Compared to its current cloud competitors, Bluzelle has zero points of failure. On a large scale project that is important because it is much harder to exploit a vulnerability causing a massive data leak to occur on a decentralized system, than it is currently on centralized solutions where all of the personal data is at a single point.
The Timeline
Bluzelle has adhered to their roadmap so far. They released the Lovelace Beta in May and are poised to release the full Lovelace test network by the end of June. For any updates I recommend keeping up with the frequently updated Bluzelle blog.
Management Team
Pavel Bain- Co-founder & CEO
Neeraj Murarka- Co-founder & CTO
Andrew Mastracci- Director of Product Development
Bluzelle has a solid development team that has managed to stay on track with the development roadmap. The CEO Pavel Bain has over 10 years of management experience but has no experience in the cloud database and database as a service market. The CTO Neeraj Murarka has over 20 years of software engineering and management experience, most recently being Chief Software Architect for Digital Infinity Systems. Andrew Mastracci, the Director of Product Development, was Co-founder & Chief Architect of the cloud networking startup Pertino, which was acquired in late 2015. It is a good sign that Bluzelle’s Director of Product Development has the most experience, compared to the rest of management, building out products in the market.
Advisors
Bluzelle has many respected advisers supporting them: ranging from former Facebook employees to respected blockchain developers and startup co-founders.
Alex Leverington has been a core Ethereum developer from the beginning. As an expert blockchain developer, his guidance will help ensure that the Bluzelle team continues to stay on track with its development roadmap.
Prashant Malik is a former Facebook employee with extensive database development experience; he created the Apache Cassandra database. His expertise in relation to Bluzelle’s market is a major asset.
The Bluzelle team recently announced that they have appointed Daniel Saito and Colin Charles as strategic advisers. They helped build out the MySQL and MariaDB database communities respectively. This ground up approach will serve Bluzelle well when it comes to long term growth. It is rare for developers to implement a service that has a weak following behind it; the lack of broad support intimidates developers because they lack a group of peers to learn from.
SWOT Analysis
Conclusion
Positives
+ Bluzelle’s team that has stayed consistent with its development roadmap
+ Reputable advisors who serve strategic roles
+ Bluzelle has done an excellent job with outreach: The Bluzelle team is very active on their Twitter page and in their Telegram. The blog on their main website is frequently updated as well.
+ Targeting a very lucrative market
Negatives
-The lack of liability for your data may slow down enterprise adoption
-Depending on the size of the project, the necessary cost for use on the main net may keep away developers who could simply use a free tier on a centralized cloud database.
Verdict
At the end of the day all investments comes down to the team and the market. Bluzelle’s development team has stayed on track, Bluzelle’s upper management is bringing in all of the right advisers, and Bluzelle is in a rapidly growing market. BLZ is a token you want in your portfolio.
