Product architecture

IBM® Watson™ - Blockchain Service is an add-on component of IBM® Watson™ IoT Platform and is deployed as a component of the IBM® Watson™ IoT Platform architectural infrastructure.

Architecture

Depending on your solution, you might have access to a different subset of Watson IoT Platform features.

IoT Blockchain Service solution:

• IoT solution with IoT Blockchain Service
• IoT Blockchain Service flexible or ad-hoc integration

The following components generally make up a IoT Blockchain Service solution:

• IBM® Watson™ IoT Platform
  A foundational cloud offering that can connect and control IoT sensors, appliances, homes, and industries. Includes IoT Blockchain Service, a service that enables IoT devices and applications to post data to a blockchain.
• Data sources
  The sources of the data that you want to write to the blockchain.
  • Data source
    Any application or device that can connect to the IoT Blockchain Service REST API.
  • Watson IoT Platform Service
    The IoT device message broker that can be used to complete device registration, real-time analytics and presentation of device data, and more.
• IoT Blockchain Service
  An IBM® Cloud service that enables IoT devices and applications to post data to a blockchain fabric.
• Hyperledger Composer
  An extensive, open blockchain development toolset and framework.
• Blockchain fabrics
  • IBM Blockchain Platform
    An IBM® Cloud blockchain offering that is built on the Hyperledger Fabric V1.0 code base.
  • Hyperledger Fabric
    A blockchain framework implementation and one of the Hyperledger projects hosted by The Linux Foundation.

IoT solution with IoT Blockchain Service

This solution is used when you want to build a complete, end-to-end IoT Blockchain Service solution from the ground up. You have access to the Watson IoT Platform dashboard with the option to include the full Watson IoT Platform component set, including Watson™ IoT Platform Service, database storage, data lifecycle management, and more.

For more information, see the following topics in the Watson IoT Platform documentation:

• The IBM® Watson™ - Blockchain Service add-on
• Using the Watson IoT Platform dashboard
• Watson IoT Platform overview and features
• Developing and customizing Watson IoT Platform

The following components might make up a IoT Blockchain Service IoT solution:

Note: In the following diagram the label IoT Blockchain Service identifies the IoT Blockchain Service service component.

IoT Blockchain Service flexible or ad-hoc integration

In this solution, a minimal set of the Watson IoT Platform features and components is used. This solution is used when you have an IoT solution already configured and want to connect your IoT environment with blockchain.

You have access to IoT Registration Service and to the Watson IoT Platform dashboard for usage monitoring and more.

For more information, see the Using the Watson IoT Platform dashboard topic in the Watson IoT Platform documentation.

The following components might make up a IoT Blockchain Service flexible or ad-hoc integration solution:

Note: In the following diagram the label IoT Blockchain Service identifies the IoT Blockchain Service service component.