Forum Discussion

Zeyad Rajabi's avatar
Zeyad Rajabi
Iron Contributor
May 07, 2018

Azure Blockchain Workbench now available as Public Preview!

Hey folks,   Excited to share that this morning at Build we announced the release of Azure Blockchain Workbench (formerly App Builder)! Workbench is the fastest way to get started with blockchain...
blockchain
Christoph Seck's avatar
Christoph Seck
Copper Contributor
May 10, 2018

Hi,

 

four (related) questions. Deploying Workbench includes the creation of a (currently ethereum) blockchain.

  • Is it possible to use another (ethereum) blockchain instance?
  • Is it possible to add nodes to the generated blockchain instance?
  • Is it possible to access the blockchaim via the standard RPC API?
  •  In the docu there is a hint, that Proof of Authority is used, is this correct?

Thanks,

Christoph

Zeyad Rajabi's avatar
Zeyad Rajabi
Iron Contributor
May 11, 2018

Thanks for the great questions. Here are the answers to your questions:

  • Is it possible to use another (ethereum) blockchain instance?
    • Not yet, although this work is in our backlog
  • Is it possible to add nodes to the generated blockchain instance?
    • Not via our API or UI at this time
  • Is it possible to access the blockchaim via the standard RPC API?
    • No, we turned off access to the RPC API for security. You can open access via the portal by modifying the network security group rules
  •  In the docu there is a hint, that Proof of Authority is used, is this correct?
    • Yes, we are using Ethereum PoA
  • Christoph Seck's avatar
    Christoph Seck
    Copper Contributor
    May 11, 2018

    Hi Zeyad,

     

    thanks for the fast answer! So as I understand it, for now it is great for PoCs. But using it in production  is still some time away, correct?

     

    Best

    Christoph

     

     

    • Zeyad Rajabi's avatar
      Zeyad Rajabi
      Iron Contributor
      May 11, 2018

      We are working on hardening Workbench so it can be used for production. We would love to hear from customers on requirements for making Workbench ready for your production solutions. Feel free to post here or on user Voice:

      https://feedback.azure.com/forums/586780-blockchain 

      • Christoph Seck's avatar
        Christoph Seck
        Copper Contributor
        May 12, 2018

        Done ;-)

  • Michael Dennis's avatar
    Michael Dennis
    Copper Contributor
    May 11, 2018
    Zeyad Rajabi wrote:

    Is it possible to access the blockchaim via the standard RPC API?

    • No, we turned off access to the RPC API for security. You can open access via the portal by modifying the network security group rules

    Can you please outline how exactly to do this? Also I would add this to your documentation. This is all great but much more valuable if you can actually access the blockchain. Thanks it looks really interesting!

    • Zeyad Rajabi's avatar
      Zeyad Rajabi
      Iron Contributor
      May 11, 2018

      Good recommendation on the article. In the meanwhile, go to your resource group with the deployed Workbench. Select the network security group resource (note there are two, one is for the worker, which represents Workbench microservices). Modify the appropriate inbound security rules to allow access. 

      • Michael Dennis's avatar
        Michael Dennis
        Copper Contributor
        May 12, 2018

        Thanks for the suggestion but RPC and SSL ports seem to be already enabled but I still cannot connect to either. There must be more steps to enable access to the Ethereum VM's under the load balancer. Ideally I want to be able to connect to the eth nodes with putty as well as via an RPC client. Also I would be interested figuring out which AD account matches to which private keys if you are looking for material for a future blog.

         

        Again thanks so much for the quick response.

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