Journalists get to ask people rude questions. I had one for Oracle, which announced a new suite of blockchain services Tuesday. Is blockchain good for anything?

Hype around blockchain tends toward the utopian. See this typical example; the author predicts that blockchain will make banks unnecessary and restore confidence in elections around the world. Here, we see blockchain helping to eradicate poverty. And I'm not immune to the hype; in May 2017 I reported that blockchain would disrupt startup investing the way that Airbnb and Uber disrupted hospitality and transportation. (See Blockchain to Blow Up Startup Investing.)

But when I look at real-world examples of blockchain, it seems to me that any useful problem allegedly solved by blockchain is better solved by a conventional database.

I posed that as a question to Atul Mahamuni, Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) VP of IoT and blockchain technologies. Then I paused for the angry blowback.

But to my surprise, Mahamuni was delighted by the question. "I've talked with so many people who say blockchain solves any problem in the world," he said. So he found it refreshing to talk with someone -- me -- who thought blockchain is useless.

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And Mahamuni had a reply: Blockchain is highly useful for some business cases, particularly tracking items in big, complex, multi-tier supply chains, Mahamuni said. Those make up much of the world's important transactions, and resolving disputes is expensive, adding 12-15% of the cost. Blockchain-enabled applications can reduce the cost of dispute resolution by 30-50%. "That's such a big business benefit and the cost is not so high. So why wouldn't anybody do it?" Mahamuni said.

How does that work? As anybody who's been following blockchain even casually knows, a blockchain is a ledger with multiple records -- called blocks -- distributed among multiple computers. Each block is added to the preceding block, to record a change. Because there are multiple copies of the ledger, shared among the multiple participants in the transaction, that makes blockchain extremely resistant to tampering. Every participant in the transactions can check their own copy of the blockchain to find records of who did what, when, and to whom.

That tampering resistance vastly improves trust in the system. Conventional databases are centralized, often operated by a third party, which encourages suspicion in the validity of those records. Maybe the person operating the database is dishonest, or has sloppy security. But with blockchain, every participant in a transaction has a copy of the blockchain, which encourages trust in the records.

"With blockchain, I have a copy and you have a copy. It's protected with cryptography and the block architecture," Mahamuni said. That makes tampering a lot more difficult. "It's not like it can't be done. But there's a cost."

For example, one of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers is using blockchain to guard against falsifying records in its multi-tier supply chain, where its suppliers have suppliers of their own, Mahamuni says. Each participant is subject to quality and quantity requirements, but there is incentive to cheat, and alter a record certifying the quality of a component that is in fact marginal. Blockchain guards against that kind of falsification, Mahamuni says.

Security aside, blockchain simplifies record-keeping among participants in a complex, multi-tier supply chain. That makes it easier to trace the provenance of each component of a complex product like a phone or car; which is useful in reducing costs in case of a product recall by targeting only products made with the affected component. Similarly, food service businesses can trace the provenance of produce and the ingredients of foods and beverages, for ethical reasons, to satisfy the demands of gourmet customers, or for health reasons in case of contaminated foods.

Next page: Blockchain for salad suppliers

Oracle is delivering blockchain as a service, from its cloud platform, with applications that plug into organizations' existing business processes. Blockchain is built into the applications users are already familiar with, Mahamuni says.

"We're not saying 'Here is the blockchain application, figure out what problem it solves for you.' We have an application that solves a problem."

To that end, Oracle introduced Oracle Blockchain Applications Cloud on Tuesday at its Oracle OpenWorld conference. Oracle adds blockchain support to its Oracle Supply Chain Management (SCM) Cloud, Oracle Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) Cloud and other Oracle Cloud applications.

"Modern supply chains generate millions of data points and thousands of daily transactions that need to be validated and confirmed, which limits the pace of business and exposes organizations to risk," the company said in a statement. "Oracle Blockchain Applications enable customers to track products through the supply chain on a distributed ledger to increase trust in business transactions, get better visibility across a multi-tier supply chain, accelerate product delivery and contract execution, and improve customer satisfaction."

The Intelligent Track and Trace application provides end-to-end traceability of goods and transactions. Lot Lineage and Provenance provides for product genealogy, serialization and provenance by tracking serial number, recording component origin and authenticity, and tracking all product transformation. The Lot Lineage and Provenance application helps with regulatory compliance, targeted recalls and preventing counterfeit components.

Additionally, the Intelligent Cold Chain application helps monitor and track the temperature-controlled supply chain for pharmaceuticals, food and beverages. And Warranty and Usage Tracking eliminates paper-based processes and automates usage tracking for high-value assets.

The applications are built on Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service, launched earlier this year.

The Oracle applications run in the company's own cloud, but each supplier has its own node to maintain control of record-keeping. Or an individual organization can run the Oracle blockchain applications on their own cloud services; the applications run on the standard Hyperledger blockchain platform. "So if you have a hyperledger node running in another cloud or on-prem, we can run on that too," Mahamuni said.

Industry is embracing blockchain solutions, from Oracle and other providers, for supply chain integrity.

After an E.coli outbreak made more than 200 people ill in April, Walmart set out a strict new policy to salad suppliers. It's using blockchain to vastly speed up supply chain tracking. "All fresh leafy greens suppliers are expected to be able to trace their products back to farm(s) (by production lot) in seconds -- not days," Walmart said in a letter to distributors.

Alpha Acid Brewing in Belmont, Calif., uses blockchain to track materials and ingredients from suppliers and analyze sensor data from the production process for each batch. The brewery uses Oracle Intelligent Track and Trace blockchain applications to help ensure it's receiving the best quality hops, malt and yeast, and deliver that message to customers, Oracle says.

Telcos face many of the same problems as businesses in other industries, with multi-tier supply chains of complex products that need to be verified. And they have needs special to the telecom industry; for example, managing complex peering agreements between network operators. (See Separating Blockchain Hype From Reality and A Clear Path to Blockchain in Telecom.)

Colt is investing in blockchain to help boost operational efficiencies, improve customer experience and open up new revenue opportunities, as well as helping manage SDN interoperability. (See Colt Ramps Its Blockchain Efforts, Explores SDN Federation Use Case.)

Vendors other than Oracle are getting into the blockchain act. This year, shipping company Maersk and IBM teamed up on a joint venture to build an information platform to cut red tape for the entire global shipping industry. And IBM is working with jewelry companies as well. (See IBM & Maersk Set Sail With Blockchain, Maersk & IBM Debut TradeLens for Blockchain-Enabled Shipping and IBM & Jewelry Companies Launch Blockchain Supply Chain Initiative .)

SAP introduced its own blockchain platform at about the same time a year ago that Oracle debuted its Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service. (See Oracle, SAP Clash on Blockchain.)

Blockchain appears to be revolutionary in the way fiber optic networking and flash memory have proven revolutionary.

But at least so far I'm not seeing evidence that blockchain is revolutionary the way the Internet and mobile have been revolutionary. Blockchain allows us to do what we were doing before, but faster, cheaper and more efficiently. I see no indication it can live up to the hype of transforming business and society. We'll still need banks and governments, though maybe blockchain can help make them more efficient and accountable. And maybe that's revolutionary enough.

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— Mitch Wagner Executive Editor, Light Reading