FAQs

Modex BCDB is a hybrid remote data storage system that enables blockchain adoption in enterprise software development and deployment by adding blockchain-based features to existing database engines.

Here is how it works: Modex BCDB is designed as a middleware that is installed between clients’ software and their legacy database systems, connecting them to a blockchain engine with minimal effort and without requiring additional training for software developers who use the product, as it has a similar interface to traditional databases. Our product does not eliminate the database component, which is essential for any organization, but is installed in your Server where it modifies a set of connectors in order to link the database to a blockchain network, while adding a set of ready made functionalities to your current software, delivering a unique combination of benefits in one shot. It then extracts the hash of every transaction that your Server processes and the metadata of the original command. The original input and the metadata are stored in the your current database, as always, but the history of all references is kept in the blockchain component that Modex BCDB brings, which is also replicated in a synchronized matter on all the nodes in your network that are given access and configured accordingly.

Modex BCDB supports businesses by enabling them to benefit from decentralization, data integrity assurance, high availability and scalability, improved security and a new, faster way to manage business-relevant data records. This is managed through a simple process of acquiring the ready-made Modex BCDB license (see pricing), an easy integration with your current systems and setup process. You won’t need to change anything in your day-to-day operations but only count the benefits.

Modex BCDB is not a blockchain and it is not a database engine, but a unique integrator of both (did we mention we patented this?). Modex BCDB brings the blockchain (Tendermint, Hyperledger Sawtooth, etc.) to your current database system(s) or brings both, from scratch (MongoDB or ElasticSearch as default), depending on your particular needs and where your company is right now, in its development pipeline.

A blockchain engine will bring to an enterprise decentralization, but in majority of cases it doesn’t support partial nodes, it doesn’t guarantee data encryption and is not designed to store files, therefore making this technology alone insufficient to an enterprise environment. On the other hand, a blockchain-database (Modex BCDB) is the combination between a blockchain engine and a database engine that ensures integrity and immutability of a transaction within a single-structured data set. It ensures decentralization as well as traditional user maintenance, it supports both partial and full nodes and on demand per-field data encryption provides per-field encryption and on demand per-field data stored on blockchain (permanent data storage for specific fields).Our solution as a blockchain-database fusion, can also store large files, can be used to support enterprise data architecture & design and any enterprise software product, supports permission request-based access and can work with any blockchain engine and any database engine. So – way better!

We fully support the original philosophy of blockchain and what it brings, especially to payments (ex. Bitcoin), removing intermediaries and making things more democratic. But what should be noted is that the technology behind bitcoin is a public blockchain and that’s how it should stay. When referring to enterprises, what should be noted is that the democracy quality of blockchain technology is really up to that private company. While enabling a blockchain environment in a company brings clear and indisputable benefits (data immutability, data integrity, security), the way this is deployed is contextual. For example, working with Modex BCDB allows a company’s management to NOT share data with all the participant nodes in the same way but on the contrary, different roles can be assigned, different permissions under geographical restrictions also (to be fully GDPR compliant for example). So it’s really up to what a company wants to achieve from blockchain.

It’s important to point first that there are many companies out there associated with ,,blockchain’’ but they don’t all do the same thing. There’s a wide range of solutions, from companies that have proprietary blockchains to companies that modified existing products to companies that saw its applicability in various industries and processes and started creating their own lanes.

Among these, Modex BCDB has developed a patented solution that fusions existing blockchain engines and existing database engines – ,,The Blockchain-Database’’ (that’s what puts the BCDB in the Modex BCDB name) – so it doesn’t compete with the ,,big companies’’ in the market but it’s looking for ways to integrate their solutions and cooperate with existing providers. What sets us apart is that we have a ready-made product, it’s system agnostic and has clear public pricing plans. We’d be happy to hear your opinion about our solution https://modex.tech/blockchain-database-product/

It’s mandatory to use good antivirus protection and you should definitely invest in that for your computer or your private network. However, Modex BCDB doesn’t use special weapons and tactics to combat attacks, malware and viruses, but it can be used to supplement established data loss prevention mechanisms. By connecting an existing software application to a blockchain back-end, Modex BCDB can ensure the data immutability, distribution and real time back-up of data, thus supplementing the traditional antivirus solutions existing in the market. Here is how: every new block’s hashing process includes metadata from the previous block’s hash output, and through this link the chain becomes “unbreakable” – any attempt to manipulate or delete data from a block results in subsequent blocks rejecting the attempted change due to the invalidity of the modified block’s hash. In case of data corruption – if the hash in the blockchain no longer matches the data in the database – the data can be reconstructed from another node where the hash still matches the data. By using blockchain technology we have traceability and record history, as well as data distribution and decentralization. These features are not found in traditional databases where information can easily be modified or deleted and neither in the ,,jurisdiction’’ of a classic antivirus. So – not more or less than an antivirus, but different and equally recommended.

That’s a very good question because it allows us to tell you more about some of our product’s built in-core features that we thought about. With Modex BCDB, all network nodes communicate with each other by sharing data. However, data synchronization policies also allow the enforcement of restrictions to data requests addressed to nodes in the subnetwork through the API Interface. These restrictions are applied at the IP address level, and once a restriction policy is defined, only the Software Applications located within an IP range that was configured in the data subnetwork will be allowed to communicate with the API Interface.

Additionally, subnetworks can be configured so as to not allow certain data to be synchronized with nodes located in other data subnetworks. For example, a particular entity (table/collection) can be configured to only synchronise with nodes located within the same subnetwork, thus ensuring that all local, national and geographical legislation is applied.

Moreover, data stored within network nodes can be encrypted or not. It is a matter of configuration and business requirements which data makes sense to be encrypted and which data should remain unencrypted. The encryption mechanism allows configurations to instruct the system to encrypt entire entity records or just particular fields within a record.

Blockchain alone doesn’t store anything else besides a history of references. But with Modex BCDB – besides storing the main blockchain records – the database component that Modex BCDB brings accepts regular file upload as well, therefore enhancing storage capabilities on your side. The data storage mechanism is designed to split the files in chunks and distribute them all over the network to ensure file availability but also to increase the data retrieval speed. Moreover, Modex BCDB implements a proof of data integrity mechanism which will ensure the integrity of the database while maintaining it in sync with the blockchain, to match at all times.

Modex BCDB is suitable for companies at any level. But for a start-up in particular, that is at the beginning of creating ,,internal data history’’ and plans for growing its business, team, exposure, it’s most recommended to invest early in our product because Modex BCDB brings both the blockchain and the database engines as default and we do have a special pricing plan (see pricing) at this level. Moreover, a start-up company investing in its early stages in such a technology can eliminate the risk of costly mistakes (external attacks, hardware failures, human error or insider data tampering), being unprepared for an audit or due diligence (in case of an acquisition later on).

While Modex BCDB’s main aim is familiarize the market, we will never try to sell you something that sounds good if your company might not need it. The right moment for a company to consider a BCDB implementation comes when you can answer ,,yes’’ to questions like: do you work with digital assets? Do you collect end-user data (payment data, personal info) ? Do you require shared written access inside the company? Does your company have subsidiaries across various locations? Do you want or need to rely on other parties for liability reasons? Do you see a need in sorting out and unifying your internal records and communications across your entire organization? Do you work with other actors in the market that you need to share data with? Is your business prone to disputes with partners in the same field?

It depends on how ,,digitalized’’ your company is and the amount of data that your company ,,produces’’. If you have an interface, you work already with a database and there’s an Application Server in this setup that dictates the logic of these components, then all you need is a minimum of five nodes, to really benefit the blockchain features and a couple of hours to customise these nodes. And then there’s some hardware optimization required: Minimum – CPU – at least 4 core > 2.6Ghz and Memory 16GB RAM and Recommended: CPU: at least 8 cores > 2.6Ghz and Memory: 32GB RAM. If you have already invested in this, then you are good to go.

And with our licence-based software and clear upfront hardware requirements, implementation costs will be highly predictable, avoiding expensive consulting contracts or prolonged development timelines.

Your developer(s) will be happy to see a familiar working format in Modex BCDB’s interface and will intuitively understand Modex BCDB’s core features, if they’re familiar with any other API. A short call between your people and our people will probably clear any question that might appear on the functionalities that we bring: security check, data integrity, trigger notifications, data ownership, smart distribution, real time recovery.

Quite the contrary! Modex BCDB as a back-end solution guarantees for business continuity in daily operations, an easy integration and no special training required.

It depends on your current setup and how you want to truly benefit from what we bring. In order to see the real value of blockchain in your company, to ensure immutability, decentralization, you may need to change some things. For example, if your company only has nodes in one location, if you assign only one admin to handle everything, if you have a rack with servers on-prem and that’s how you store everything, then integrating Modex BCDB will require more changes and more time for new configurations. On the other side, if your company has offices and a couple of tens of employees in various locations, then using Modex BCDB will only enhance your setup, easily (no hardware, no trainings, no hiring developers specifically for this). So it’s really up to each individual company.

While we encourage ambitious plans and progress brought by diversity in this field, we can’t help thinking about how painful it is for a company to invest full resources in a new technology, research, interviewing the right people, cutting funds from other projects and whatnot.

Modex BCDB will significantly help speed up the adoption of blockchain at enterprise level, with a high rate of cost/time efficiency, having core functionalities that add value to new and existing products, making them blockchain-ready in a matter of days. The ready-made functionalities (data encryption, data ownership, data sync rules, record history, data integrity checks, data distribution, data storage policies) are available at the back-end/storage level and won’t require developers to write them into your source code.

Not only that Modex BCDB has done all the research and development and came up with a ready-made product but it also entered the market at unbeatable prices. Let us break this down for you: enterprises need to find developers who are proficient in blockchain. But due to the short supply and high market demand, blockchain experts charge considerable fees for their services. Currently, it is estimated that the yearly salary of a single blockchain engineer ranges between €135,000/$151,000 and €155,000 / $174,000. Moreover, only 0.1% of the 20 million software developers in the world know what blockchain code looks like. Hourly payment for an adept blockchain developer varies from €35 / $39 to €180 / $202. In our experience, it takes about 18 months to train a blockchain developer, so companies will spend up to €200,000 / $225,000 on each developer.

These kinds of resources could be better spent in other legacy prestigious projects for your company or for that annual team-building. However, if you do want your team to be more knowledgeable on blockchain in general, we have developed a comprehensive tool, Modex Academy, to help enterprises and developers understand what blockchain is and how it works, so they can broaden their tech horizon even further.

For an accurate comparison, see our pricing plans.

Even though some of the benefits that come with BCDB may not be unique to blockchain, our product comes with these features as ready-made and they are guaranteed to work. So Modex BCDB brings this unique combination of benefits in one shot, instead of patchworking various technologies to get similar results. But the main outcome is that Modex BCDB delivers trust – you won’t have to put that trust in a system put together by someone else which will cost more, take longer to implement and require more support.

Your clients will probably not be interested in a power-point presentation about the technicalities of your latest investment, Modex BCDB. That’s for your developers. But here’s how your investment translates in benefits for them, that could be announced in a newsletter, for example:

– Your clients’ data will be much better protected = increased clients’ trust.

– Your company can assign current resources to other projects or interactions with clients, research, studies, etc. that can impact them immediately = ROI and new clients.

– Your company will be able to facilitate access between different ,,actors’’, saving your clients’ time and trips and filling forms and potential other resources.

A couple of things are essential: integrating blockchain at enterprise level brings all the benefits of decentralization, data immutability, traceability, recoverability to your company. This means that the nodes participating in the ,,intra-network’’ will store a replica of the references of data, the history of transactions and data can easily be traced chronologically and can never be lost, since that would require a special kind of impossible forces to align. Real-Life comparison: those keys that are necessary for launching nuclear attacks? they’d need to be turned at the same time. By many-many people across a network, that all agree that it’s in everyone’s benefit. None of the key holders can just do it on its own. Same with blockchain at enterprise level: in order for anything to be tampered with, absolutely everyone participating in the network would have to agree to coordinate their computers to tamper with the exact same data, at the exact same time, against their own company.

Now, let’s add on top of this a couple of Modex BCDB’s own unique features:

– Modex BCDB takes an agnostic approach, which means it integrates your current setup so no need to move to different ecosystems (like when migrating from IOS to Android, when all your gadgets are on IOS. Or the other way around). Also, if you yourself decide to switch your database provider, Modex BCDB will integrate the new one just as easily.

– Scalability: we want your team to keep growing. The more the merrier! Modex BCDB will follow this growth by allowing you to keep adding nodes (devices, as computers for example) in the network and to keep on customizing these nodes and how they synchronize with each other, what data each should keep and to create subnetworks, regional networks, country networks, etc. There’s no limit. Scalability is a key indicator of our product’s capability to adapt and perform under an expanding workload.

– Customization: with Modex BCDB you will see how easy it is to customize the nodes and the data that is being shared between nodes. While blockchain’s decentralization is something we appreciate and we want everyone participating to store a replica of the data, we also support a flexible model, adapted to your company’s requirements. And those requirements can mean that not everyone in the company should have access to full data, maybe only partial. So with Modex BCDB data can be fully encrypted or only partially, nodes can be given full access or only partial or they can be private nodes and security keys to access everything can be kept safely between several nodes as well. It is a matter of business requirements.

– Security: Modex BCDB enhances cybersecurity through the application of the blockchain layer, while also offering simplified and secure data aggregation to build a single picture of the truth for all participants.

Let’s make it simple then: What does it mean in general for your management / board? ROI, trust and peace of mind.

What does this mean to you in particular? – Legacy. Bringing Modex BCDB’s solution to your company is a long-term ,,revolution’’ in the way things are done and managed and reported.

Modex BCDB is designed to act as a fusion between blockchain and a database, while also maintaining security and data privacy. By doing this, a zero-knowledge proof can be achieved. This means that you can provide specific data to a third party (Financial or Control Institutions for example) without revealing any information apart from that specific data. This also means having the means to prove internal records to be authentic and tamper-free in case of a dispute or an audit or to save time in case of a thorough due diligence in case your company is in the process of being acquired by another one. Lots of time and laborious work being saved.

Current legacy systems are not unhackable but what blockchain technology does is making data loss impossible, in case of such an attack. A blockchain-based architecture comprises a Network Client application, distributed across multiple nodes, each with its own copy of the full Blockchain data, which remains synchronized using the consensus mechanism of the Client to ensure the immutability of data and data decentralization. Through the mechanism of cutting the consensus with a tampered node, Modex BCDB will recognize the tampered data and will automatically restore it from another node that stores the full version of the data.

Moreover, by enabling a blockchain environment in your company, Modex BCDB can better mitigate a possible DDoS attack. Blockchain technology has a decentralized structure — and DDoS attacks rely on a centralized server. The decentralized nature of blockchain means that it can allocate data and bandwidth to absorb DDoS attacks as they happen. Each decentralized “protection pool” adds more bandwidth for spam DDoS traffic to use, which in turn protects the centralized data storage. With all the bandwidth being used, DDoS will cap out its maximum usage.

Using Modex BCDB can eliminate the vulnerability of classic database systems, through its decentralized and distributed structure, given that the company has taken some steps to have several nodes in its internal network. Even if a node in the blockchain network is compromised by an attack or other type of security incident, the data can be immediately restored from another node, as it is virtually impossible for an incident to affect every node in the network. Modex BCDB stores a full copy of the data on each full node and each time a full node is added to a subnetwork, it begins to synchronize and bring in all data from the database and blockchain. A lost or damaged node to which a software product connects can be easily rebuilt, and in the meantime the software can connect to any other full node inside the network. Moreover, since the blockchain keeps a chronological record of encrypted references, even if an attack happens on one of the network’s nodes and manages to leak information, the data becomes unusable since it is encrypted, reducing the possibility of ransomware.

According to the GDPR general guidelines (www.gdpr.eu) fines can go up to €10 million or 2% of annual global turnover for infringements of articles: 11 (processing that doesn’t require identification), 25 – 39 (general obligations of processors and controllers), 42 (certification) and 43 (certification bodies). And fines can go up to €20 million or 4% of annual global turnover for infringements of articles: 5 (data processing principles); 6 (lawfulness of processing); 7 (conditions for consent); 9 (processing of special categories of data); 12 – 22 (data subjects’ rights); 44 – 49 (data transfers to third countries or international organisations).

In the U.S.A., according to the HIPAA Act for Healthcare data, fines can go up to 50000$ per incident, for First, Second and Third Tier incidents (up to 1.5mil. $ in value), depending on how much the company knew about collecting and storing its data in a neglectful way.

Compared to these specifications, the cost of a Modex BCDB license suitable for a client’s particular needs + the cost of taking some prior steps towards digitalization become not only obsolete but a small investment in a company’s own future. Not to mention the cost of shame for being publicly listed as a ,,bad’’ or ,,unsafe’’ company (see HIPAA’s Wall of Shame )

Modex BCDB’s main aim is to familiarize the market. Of course there’s a financial objective, as in every other company, but we believe in paving the way and helping out (see our FREE plan for start-ups or developers) and allowing bigger things to happen in the future in an organic way. We don’t believe in ,,bazaar’’ kind of transactions but in developing long-term relations with companies that really want to benefit from what we bring, not just to add yet another sale’’ to our portfolio. And no, we don’t practice the ,,free sample’’ approach and we don’t plan to increase the prices once the clients are ,,hooked’’.

Modex BCDB’s main advantage is an easy adoption that ensures business continuity. Companies can now benefit from a secure and stable blockchain environment with no blockchain expertise thanks to Modex BCDB’s agnostic approach to standard databases and blockchain engines and thanks to its ready-made core functionalities. Clients continue to store data as always but with blockchain added benefits, while their developers can continue to use existing systems through the integration period without the need for special trainings, costly research and long development cycle. However, this will always depend on how your legacy systems are built, they should be evaluated first. The choice of the underlying platform could pose limitations and additionally, firms may be exposed to third-party risks, as some of their current technology might be sourced from external vendors.

Our novel solution addresses the biggest challenges companies face in deploying blockchain solutions – the cost and time of implementation. With our product, customers can access all the advantages of blockchain, without needing to concern themselves with its technical intricacies. Deployment time will depend, of course, on your current system, setups and company dimensions. The license acquisition takes a few minutes but getting familiar with the Modex Workbench and customizing your company’s networks’ different authorizations will depend on your free schedule and the size of the network that you want to integrate. However, we believe the times of year-long technical integrations are gone.

With Modex BCDB, companies can now integrate blockchain just as easily as if they were connecting to an API, so they can focus solely on their business, while we handle everything else. Your developers team will get an intuitive understanding of how everything works on the Modex BCDB interface but also the ready-made core features. On a technical level, Modex BCDB doesn’t require developers to learn something completely new as it looks like a regular database engine whose operating mechanisms are widely known by programmers. BCDB allows developers to work on formats they already know, acting like an API or a traditional database connection. To further address this challenge, we’ve developed a comprehensive tool, Modex Academy, to help enterprises and developers understand what blockchain is and how it works, so they can broaden their tech horizon even further. And for knowledge base on everything technical for Modex BCDB, we have the entire documentation at https://bcdb.modex.tech/docs/#/ . In any case, we can offer full support throughout the year for inquiries by purchasing the Additional Support plan (see pricing) and we walk you through everything for free in the initial integration phase (data migration and getting to know the Workbench).

Yes. We will walk you through the initial phase of transforming existing mutable records on your side into immutable records and getting acquainted with Modex BCDB Workbench. After this step, support will be available as well, depending on the license plan applied to your company (see pricing).

Business as usual but you will have the Modex Workbench tool to use for optimizing things for your company. From the workbench interface, you can monitor all network and network nodes, review data sharing operations, define data synchronization policies, view reports on system activity and audit trails, overwrite data access for special use cases, view blockchain records and access administration dashboard. Data owners and developers can create entities, indexes and operate stored data.

Modex BCDB’s aim is to bring outcome in your company by integrating in a unique way what’s already in the market and in your company. The essential characteristic of Modex BCDB is the BCDB part, which refers to the fusion between an existing Blockchain (BC) and an existing Database (DB) through a middleware that is installed between clients’ software and their legacy database systems, connecting them to a blockchain engine. And it does so with an agnostic approach to databases and blockchain engines, integrating by default Tendermint and Hyperledger Sawtooth on the blockchain side and MongoDB and ElasticSearch on the database side.

However, our integrations are not limited to just these names and we’re even looking at building our own blockchain engine in the future. For now, we like Tendermint, for example, because of its high performance, speed and low memory footprint and we have modified it a bit to serve our features. But we’re also able to integrate Ethereum Blockchain and same on DB, we also work with MS SQL Server, Rethink DB, OracleDB, etc. ). Modex BCDB is permanently working to integrate as many BC and DB engines as possible, to cover as many particular client requests as possible. We’re getting there.

Business as usual in your day-to-day operations in your interface and existing database but you will have the Modex Workbench tool to use for optimizing things for your company. You will use the Modex Workbench as an administration user-agent which supports the Modex BCDB beneficiary (you) to maintain the system. From the workbench interface, you can monitor all network and network nodes that you have licensed, review data sharing operations, define data synchronization policies, view reports on system activity and audit trails, overwrite data access for special use cases, view blockchain records and access administration dashboard. Data owners and developers can create entities, indexes and operate stored data.

Yes. Modex BCDB is fully agnostic, meaning it can fusion various blockchain and database engines. At the moment, Modex BCDB is implementing HyperLedger Sawtooth and Tendermint. HyperLedger Fabric and Ethereum integrations are in the testing phase. As for database engines, MongoDB is our default data storage system, but the database component can be changed with a different remote database engine, whether traditional or NoSQL.

We have decided to opt against an open source architecture because of several reasons: our target customers include people who may not be highly skilled or knowledgeable in software, and open sourcing the product may have made it more difficult to use and understand and because we want to provide customers who use our product with comprehensive support services that we may not be able to offer if the product were open source. Moreover, as our product is part of a market that is still in its very early stages and doesn’t have well-established players, we believe that we may risk the involvement of malicious users if our product were open source at this point.

A good mantra nowadays that we can’t recommend enough is ,,Data is Law’’ and the only trustful source of information. That being said, no, you don’t need to trust us, that defeats the very idea of a blockchain. With Modex BCDB your data remains in your control, in your database, which can be on-prem or in the cloud (we recommend a hybrid approach). We believe that’s important to you.

One of the main features of Modex BCDB is the unrestricted customization and scalability based on your business’s requirements. At first, you will set up the nodes network architecture, which is divided into two private blockchain subnetworks: The Data SubNetwork (at least three nodes) and the Authorization & Licensing SubNetwork (at least two nodes). The Data Subnetwork is composed of a suite of full, partial and private Modex BCDB licensed nodes, third party or owned and The Authorization & Licensing SubNetwork is designed to be used by the private blockchain data network for authentication, node licensing and encryption.

In the Modex BCDB environment, nodes are accepted and started by the network only when the system beneficiary licenses them. From the admin interface, system beneficiaries (you) can issue licenses for each new node. It is therefore up to you to set up each participating node in the overall network or even subnetwork, as each node deployed in any Modex BCDB network requires a license from the beneficiary. This license will be used to authenticate the node in the network and to identify node access and security privileges in collaboration with other nodes.

A node can be full node, partial node or private node. a full node will collect all the data circulating in the entire network and it will make it available to any node if a request is submitted. a partial node will collect only data which was introduced within its own exposed apis and other nodes data will be collected and stored when required, but it will provide data to any nodes requesting it. a private node will collect data from its own exposed API’s, will also collect data from other nodes when required but it will never provide any data from its storage. Nodes will only be started and accepted by the network if the system beneficiary licenses them.

Firstly, let’s knock on wood on that! Secondly – given that we don’t store your data and we don’t own your infrastructure, your data and your infrastructure remain intact, on your premises. Nothing is lost or affected. The same way Modex BCDB gets integrated as a back-end solution that starts counting transactions’’ and replicating them on nodes, the same way it can stop. Your Front-End structure keeps on communicating as before, by connecting directly to the interface through the Server that processes all the commands. Business as usual but without all the benefits of data immutability, decentralization and security that Modex BCDB brings. Then it is up to you to get yourself maybe another subscription of the same sorts (did we mention we’ve patented this?).

Same as always. The only difference is that the blockchain component of our solution also stores the records of your attempt to correct the mistakes, given that ALL data records are stored together with their historical versions since their creation time (meaning since you started integrating Modex BCDB). Every read operation can be done with a version parameter attached. This instructs the system which record version to retrieve to its caller. Record deletion is happening only at the database level, but the actual blockchain references to records and records hashes are never lost. The delete operation is also marked in the blockchain trail of historical versions. For example, if you upload a wrong document in your interface, you may have permission to correct your mistake by deleting the file, restoring things with a [CTRL+Z] type of command and uploading the correct document. The blockchain component of Modex BCDB doesn’t interfere with this but it will keep a record of all the transactions that just happened: the fact that something has been deleted, by whom and at what time.

Scalability is a key indicator of our product’s capability to adapt and perform under an expanding workload. There’s no limit to how many nodes can be added in a network on Modex BCDB but there might come a time when – due to a higher number of transactions / month, a different kind of pricing plan should be discussed. See our pricing plans here.

Your data will be collected and stored as usual, in your database, in the time zone corresponding to your system settings. The time stamp for references for this data, which are stored on the blockchain component, will correspond to the local time zone (UTC format) of the node that initiates the transaction.

Every insert, update or delete action will represent a transaction in the blockchain. All data records are stored together with their historical versions since their creation time (meaning since the integration of Modex BCDB). Every read operation can be done with a version parameter attached. This instructs the system which record version to retrieve to its caller. Record deletion is happening only at the database level, the actual blockchain references to records and records hashes are never lost. The delete operation is also marked in the blockchain trail of historical versions. Modex BCDB read operations can be done by accessing the database components directly. They can also be performed through optimized blockchain core queries to obtain records with confirmed and valid integrity check. All write operations are blockchain transactions which store references to database records location and payload hashes for integrity checks.

Fair enough! This estimation will depend then on the size of your company and network and potential nodes that you want to enable. Using a standard database engine should allow you anyway to determine accurately the number of transactions in your system but if can’t find this information – naturally, we would recommend you the Startups Plan (see pricing) if you’re in your first year of business, small-medium team and a low workload, invoices, documents, etc. or the Enterprise Plan (see pricing) if your company is rather widely spread, has pops and subsidiaries in various locations, several lines of products and there’s heavy ,,communication’’ and transactions happening between departments, lots of invoices, etc. But let’s look at this in a progressive setup: when your company increases, we can always adjust the plan based on your new needs.

Data distribution in our network is limited at the speed of the chosen blockchain framework and the insertion of data into a node is limited by the speed of the chosen database. Tendermint by itself reaches in benchmarks 1,000 transactions/second (tx/sec). BCDB comes with a slight overhead and depending on functionalities activated (encryption, integrity check etc.), the speed will vary because each node does all of the work for the system (processing but also storing the history of the transactions).

Let’s not call them constraints but requirements. But first, it should be noted that deploying blockchain technology in general or Modex BCDB’s solution in particular is not mandatory for all companies. If, however, your company is looking to expand, maybe hire new people, open new locations, spread its product in various markets, if you find it difficult to maintain an audit trail and you need to share data with third parties, if you cannot trust everyone in your company to have full access to your database, then definitely yes. And yes, there are some requirements but they are natural steps towards a company’s digitalization process and stepping into the future of managing data.

The main requirement is an expanded network of nodes (at least five), in order to fully benefit from the blockchain essential features (at least three for the Data Subnetwork and at least two for the Authorization SubNetwork) and some hardware optimization: Minimum: CPU – at least 4 core > 2.6Ghz and Memory 16GB RAM Recommended: CPU: at least 8 cores > 2.6Ghz and Memory: 32GB RAM.

For more information please check our Documentation at https://modex.tech/blockchain-database-product/

Yes. With Modex BCDB integrated in a company’s systems, even if a node in the blockchain network is compromised by an attack or other type of security incident, the data can be immediately restored from another node. It is virtually impossible for an incident to affect every node in the network. Modex BCDB stores a full copy of the data on each full node, and each time a full node is added to a subnetwork, it begins to synchronize and bring in all data from the database and blockchain. The duration of the process depends on the volume of stored data. Through the API Interface, the newly-created node exposes all the functionalities through which a software product can interact with BCDB to be completely operational. A lost or damaged node to which a software product connects can be easily rebuilt, and in the meantime the software can connect to any other full node inside the network. This mechanism does not require any snapshot-type copies to be made; it requires 2-3 full nodes to ensure maximum security required for a system to be fully operational and highly available, compared to a classic backup which creates at least two or three full copies per day.

We’re not saying you can’t charge further however or for how long you want. We’re saying that you can be more efficient and relax for a couple of months while you’re still charging your clients for the rest of the time, if this is your goal. Or, you can increase your clients network by working more efficiently and faster with more than one. Up to you. But with Modex BCDB, the times of year long implementations are gone.