Google Cloud Launches Blockchain Node-Hosting Service
- The “Blockchain Node Engine” was designed to be a fully managed service that would help Web3 developers build and deploy new products for the blockchain.
- It features a number of security features, such as Google’s Cloud Armor that helps prevent DDos attacks from slowing down a network.
Google Cloud sign displayed in front of their headquarters in Silicon Valley, California, USA, July 2019. Sundry Photography/Shutterstock
Google Cloud is entering the blockchain space with a new node engine service that should streamline the process of setting up a new blockchain node, the company said in a blog post on 27 October.
According to the announcement, “Blockchain Node Engine” was designed to be a fully managed service that would help Web3 developers build and deploy new products on blockchain-based platforms. The new product will initially support only the Ethereum blockchain, but the company wishes to expand the node engine to cover a variety of networks. The company wrote in the blog post:
“While self-managed nodes are often difficult to deploy and require constant management, Blockchain Node Engine is a fully managed node-hosting service that can minimize the need for node operations. Web3 companies who require dedicated nodes can relay transactions, deploy smart contracts, and read or write blockchain data with the reliability, performance, and security they expect from Google Cloud compute and network infrastructure.”
One of the goals of the new service is to reduce the need for a dedicated DevOps team as Google Cloud would actively monitor the nodes, and restart them during outages and when needed. The Node Engine will allow developers to deploy new nodes with a “single operation” at the desired region and network.
Google Cloud’s new service also comes with various security features such as Google’s Cloud Armor, which was designed to prevent distributed denial-of-service (DDos) attacks that could slow down networks. Nodes will also be placed behind a virtual private cloud (VPC) firewall, which will allow only trusted machines and users to communicate with the client endpoint.
The move came less than a year after Google Cloud announced it was forming a dedicated digital assets and web3 services team, with one of their goals being the creation of a node validator as a service and data hosting services.
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