Today, the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger announced its Hyperledger Certified Service Provider (HCSP) program to accelerate blockchain adoption by enterprises. Under this initiative, Accenture, Ant Financial, Beijing PeerSafe Technology, Chainyard and IBM are the first companies to receive Hyperledger’s stamp of approval to offer technical support and services to companies adopting the Hyperledger blockchain.
The HCSP program will provide training and professional certification to these members about installing, configuring, operating, managing and troubleshooting networks built on Hyperledger Fabric or Sawtooth. Members qualifying as HCSPs will in turn offer support, consulting, professional services and training to companies exploring blockchain applications.
“Enterprises are looking for partners with the expertise needed to deploy Hyperledger DLTs quickly and efficiently and to ensure ongoing success,” said Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director, Hyperledger.
Behlendorf further said: “By providing a structured program to train and certify service providers on core Hyperledger technologies, we are creating the infrastructure for both enterprises and services companies to meet the demands of deploying production networks and developing and supporting new applications.”
The companies mentioned above had to meet specific criteria to qualify as HCSPs. First and foremost, the organization has to be a member of Hyperledger. Next, it should have three or more engineers who have passed the Certified Hyperledger Administrator Exam. The final criterion is the capacity to support enterprise end-users fully. That includes the ability to provide customers with onsite engineering support.
Accenture and IBM are relatively active in the blockchain space and have multiple collaborations across industries to launch distributed platforms. The two are also members of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.
A few months ago, IBM partnered with blockchain firm Chainyard for a supplier management platform.
Given the level of activity in China, it’s perhaps unsurprising that two of the five Fabric certified providers are Chinese. Ant Financial has its own platform, Ant Blockchain. Alibaba, which owns a significant minority stake in Ant Financial, provides a Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) hosting platform that supports the Ant Blockchain as well as Hyperledger Fabric and Quorum.
