Client
Microsoft develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells computer software, consumer electronics, and more.
Business Need
Microsoft requested a Digital rights management (DRM) system for manufacturing based on blockchain technology. It has consisted of API for two applications and a blockchain DRM service.
For that time Microsoft announced new Azure Blockchain Workbench platform and requested to integrate their DRM system into this platform. This platform is a collection of Azure services and capabilities to design, create and deploy blockchain applications with Ethereum support.
The goal was to develop two web applications on top of the provided API and integrate them with Azure Blockchain Workbench platform.
To increase user audience, Microsoft requested Akvelon to develop Add-ins for the following platforms:
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- MS SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS);
- SharePoint Online;
- SharePoint On-Premises;
- MS Dynamics CRM Online.
Akvelon’s Engagement
Akvelon successfully developed 2 web applications – Supplier and Manufacturer on Angular with the integration of the provided API. Supplier application used to add file hash into blockchain, Manufacturer app for verification of the file using the same blockchain. Applications were covered with unit and integration tests before publishing into production.
On the second phase, Akvelon created add-ins for SSMS, SharePoint, CRM platforms. Basically, there were four different web-applications. Akvelon added two items in context menus on UI side – to certify items and to verify items in the blockchain. Every add-in used the hash of the document/database as its thumbprint. On the server side, hash was sent to Blockchain API for certification and verification.
Add-ins for SharePoint are divided into Classic and Modern. Classic add-ins are for customizing SharePoint Online Classic View and SharePoint On-Premise version. Modern is for SharePoint Online Modern View. For Classic add-in we used SharePoint JSOM model (JavaScript, SharePoint API), for Modern add-in it was SharePoint Framework. The Modern version included React components, Office Fabric library for UI, logic was written using Angular/TypeScript. Also for SharePoint add-ins authorization between SharePoint and the blockchain API was implemented using Azure Active Directory.
For Microsoft Dynamics CRM add-in the “Certify” and “Verify” menu items were added to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Ribbon. The server side was written as a Microsoft CRM plugin using the Microsoft CRM SDK (C#).
For Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (MS SSMS) add-in, the UI and the logic were implemented using C# and Visual Studio Extensibility Tools. For MS SSMS an installation package was created.
Benefits & Results
Akvelon enables digital certification of documents, databases, and more to attest existence, validity, and ownership of the data. The service spans SharePoint documents, CRM and SQL databases. Attestation records are stored using new technology standard for keeping trusted records – the blockchain technology on private Ethereum network, created and managed using Microsoft Blockchain Workbench. Blockchain technology ensures that data is safe and not modified using a distributed ledger.
Technologies Used
.Net, C#, JavaScript, Angular, React, Azure Active Directory, Azure Blockchain Workbench, MS SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), SharePoint API, SharePoint Framework, MS Dynamics CRM Online API.
