Unless you put all your effort into staying away from technology, Dell is a name that everyone is familiar with. Since its inception on the 1st of February 1984, Dell has maintained its position as a global leader in computing and has become a household name for many. On the 7th of February 2023, Hedera announced that Dell Technologies will be Joining Google, IBM, Ubisoft, and other tech giants in its Governing Council. This move solidifies Hedera’s hold as a leader in the decentralized space, and both parties will gain valuable expertise to continue advancing in their respective fields.
Who is Hedera, and What is Hashgraph Technology?
Hedera is a governing body and public network that supports developers in building and deploying decentralized applications. This platform is fully open-source and operates on a Proof-of-Stake model. It provides developers with three key services, including smart contracts based on Solidity, token services, and consensus. One of Hedera’s key advantages is its underlying Hashgraph consensus algorithm, which enables it to be very fast, energy-efficient (and even carbon-negative), and secure.
Hashgraph, similar to the blockchain, is a decentralized ledger system developed by Dr. Leemon Baird. However, unlike blockchain, Hashgraphs does not require miners to validate transactions but instead use the ‘Gossip about Gossip’ protocol where individual nodes ‘gossip’ with each other to create Direct Acyclic Graphs(DAG), and using this technology, the HBAR token was launched in 2017-2018.1
When Bitcoin pioneered decentralized infrastructure, Ethereum brought programmability into the midst. Previous blockchain technologies that rely on proof-of-work consensus models consume large amounts of energy and process transactions slowly in order to maintain adequate security. This leads to high bandwidth usage and expensive fees, even for simple cryptocurrency transactions.
The Hedera public network operates on a proof-of-stake model and utilizes hashgraph consensus to achieve the highest level of security possible (ABFT). It boasts breakneck transaction speeds and extremely low bandwidth consumption, making it a leader in the field. With its unique combination of high throughput, low fees, and rapid finality, Hedera is paving the way for the future of public ledgers.
What is the Hedera Governing Council?
The Hedera network is governed by the Hedera Governing Council, which comprises 39 organizations with highly diverse backgrounds. According to Hedera.com , Hedera operates under the concept of Decentralized Governance, meaning that it separates governance from consensus. According to them, their governance model is designed to prevent any one company, a small group of developers, or node operators from having excessive influence or control over the network.
The Hedera Governing Council collectively determines the direction of Hedera’s software and services through equal voting rights, thereby ensuring that no single member has a greater say in the network’s codebase direction than others. The members of the community can provide their input through the Hedera Improvement Proposals, which you can learn more about here. In their governance design, all members have a three-year maximum term, with up to two consecutive terms and an equal vote on network and platform decisions. Swirlds, the creator of hashgraph, has a permanent seat and equal vote. This is the implementation of the idea of fair responsibility. Unlike other blockchain networks, Hedera ensures network stability for end-users and application owners with a no-fork guarantee. The Hedera Governing Council achieves this through technical controls via state proofs. Finally, Hedera anticipates thousands of public nodes joining to support the network’s decentralized consensus and growth. It is also important to note that council members are running the initial set of nodes on the Hedera network.2
Why is Dell Joining the Governing Council significant?
With Dell joining the Governing Council, it will be able to strengthen its ability to help customers and organizations with their digital transformation through the application of distributed ledger technology(DLT). Dell aims to gain first-hand experience with the emerging technology and opportunities provided by running its own Hedera node and developing applications for highly decentralized mission-critical environments like Edge Computing. The company intends to openly share its results to contribute to the industry’s collective learning.
Here’s what John Roese, the Global CTO of Dell Technologies, had to say on the announcement of this partnership.
“Our customers rely on us to both maintain and help secure their existing infrastructure as well as advise them on technologies they are considering to assist them in achieving their goals, whether it is in process optimization, new business models or meeting their ESG standards”
Further, he added that,
“By gaining hands-on experience with distributed ledger technology, we’re able to serve as a rational, holistic voice for customers considering incorporating DLT into their digital transformation.”
Dell’s addition to the Hedera Governing Council is in line with the company’s focus on decentralized data initiatives, such as Project Alvarium. The project’s goal is to develop a Data Confidence Fabric capable of measuring data trust, which in turn helps to increase confidence in data from distributed systems. Alvarium leverages distributed ledger technology (DLT) to track data confidence across diverse and distributed edge computing ecosystems. With secure, provisioned DLTs, customers can build cost-effective and efficient applications across IT environments, including edge computing, that provide scalable data persistence, protection, control, and process automation. As the research progresses, Hedera’s dynamic ecosystem will facilitate further research and development in this area, as well as discover new opportunities in contract automation and ESG reporting.
“Dell is a global leader in technology, with an expansive global footprint. Like Hedera, Dell has innovation and scale at its core. Dell’s insight and decades of computing experience will bring even more expertise and innovative thinking to the Hedera Governing Council.”
The thoughts of the co-chair of the Membership Committee for the Hedera Governing Council Miller.3
In conclusion, this partnership has been welcomed with open arms and has renewed faith in the industry following a rough time period where we’ve seen exchanges collapse and many other companies file for bankruptcy. It is exciting to see how this new partnership will grow and yield results for both Hedera and Dell.
- Hedera: https://hedera.com/learning/hedera-hashgraph/what-is-hedera-hashgraph[↩]
- Hedera Global Governing Council | Hedera. https://hedera.com/council[↩]
- Hedera: https://hedera.com/blog/dell-technologies-joins-hedera-governing-council-to-help-automate-distributed-ledger-technology[↩]
