Blockchain Solutions and Services LLC Deploys First Blockchain Platforms in Oman

 BSS (Blockchain Solutions and Services LLC), Information Technology Authority (ITA) of Oman, and technology service provider Omantel jointly announced the deployment of the national HyperLedger Fabric Platforms to speed the digital innovation efforts in the Sultanate of Oman.

BSS, ITA and Omantel have chosen HyperLedger Fabric as the underlying technology for these platforms. Many are familiar with Hyperledger Fabric - a permission based blockchain platform, developed by IBM under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation. The platform is widely used by governments and corporations globally. Hyperledger Fabric provides an enterprise-ready permissioned blockchain environment with high security, privacy and smart contract capabilities through “chaincode”. An HFS research report recently placed Hyperledger Fabric as holding 52% of all Enterprise Blockchain projects in production, the highest percentage compared to all other platforms.

Oman has embarked on its blockchain journey with two strategic focuses, innovation and national growth.  As such Oman has created two platforms. The first platform is the development platform dubbed the “Blockchain Factory” or what is most commonly known as BaaS (Blockchain as a Service). The “Blockchain factory” was developed jointly by BSS and Swisscom Blockchain AG to allow startups, businesses, entrepreneurs, industry players, Ministries, universities, and even SMEs to explore their Blockchain use cases in an agile environment.  Users of the development platform can deploy blockchains; develop use cases and chain code to gradually mature them into real life use cases of benefit to both the private and public sectors in Oman. H.E. Abdulsalam Mohammed Al-Murshidi, Executive President of the State General Reserve Fund and Chairman of Blockchain Solutions and Services stated, “The deployment of the blockchain platform in Oman is one of the most important initiatives being undertaken today. With the digitization efforts underway in Oman and regionally, the blockchain platform will empower developers, entrepreneurs, and businesses to innovate using blockchain in a flexible and safe environment, where they can then be migrated into real life production ready solutions on the National Private permissioned Platform”.

The second platform is where mature and production ready blockchain applications and solutions are plugged into the nation-wide platform “The National Private Permissioned Platform”.  This highly secure environment is built with three consensus nodes distributing consensus across ITA, BSS, and Omantel. Prior to deploying applications and solutions on the production environment, the solution undergoes an extensive quality assurance and code review process. Dr. Khalid M.W. Tahhan, CEO of BSS stated, “We are keen to develop blockchain applications that serve the Sultanate as well as the global economy at large. With this in mind we also want to ensure that we provide a safe, secure, and robust environment for these applications and solutions to flourish. We hope that both the private sector players and innovators will work in tandem with government to build an innovation driven ecosystem. We have already initiated development of use cases for government utilizing these platforms, which we will announce in due course, and look forward to the innovative use cases to be developed by society utilizing the Development Factory deployed”.