IBM has announced that its IBM Blockchain service on Bluemix is now available in beta. The company released an experimental version of the service at InterConnect 2016, and is now offering the beta version with several new and exciting features that will enable users to build blockchain applications in the cloud.

Last December, IBM joined the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Project – a collaborative effort to advance blockchain technology and make it relevant for use cases across all industries. The IBM Blockchain service is a peer-to-peer permissioned network built on top of the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger fabric code.

IBM Blockchain service on Bluemix will enable users to quickly “spin up” a blockchain network and avoid the complexities involved with manually creating a development environment. Instead of creating and managing a network, developers can utilize their time generating innovative blockchain applications such as trade settlement; asset tracking and transfer; and trusted Internet of Things transactions.

New beta features include:

• Integrated Swagger UI to quickly explore and invoke blockchain APIs
   
• Blockchain transaction view
   
• Deploy and invoke blockchain logic (chaincode) from the dashboard
   
• Updated samples and tutorials

To get started with the IBM Blockchain Beta service, users need to deploy the service to their Bluemix account and follow “Getting started guide”.

Earlier in February this year, IBM announced its commitment to make blockchain ready for business. It said that its new blockchain services available on Bluemix – an open standards cloud platform for building, running, and managing apps and services – would enable developers to access fully integrated DevOps tools for creating, implementing, running and monitoring blockchain applications on the IBM Cloud.