Link copied 
Tech titan Microsoft on Thursday announced that the public preview of Azure Blockchain Service is now available.
Azure Blockchain Service is a fully-managed blockchain service that will help simplify the formation, management, and governance of consortium blockchain networks, allowing businesses to focus on workflow logic and application development.
“With a few simple clicks, users can create and deploy a permissioned blockchain network and manage consortium policies using an intuitive interface in the Azure portal,” Mark Russinovich Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Azure.
Alongside the public launch of Azure Blockchain Service, Microsoft announced its partnership with J.P. Morgan aimed at accelerating the adoption of enterprise blockchain.
Through this partnership, J.P. Morgan’s Quorum will become the first distributed ledger platform available through Azure Blockchain Service, enabling the customers of both the companies to build and scale blockchain networks in the cloud.
“Quorum customers like Starbucks, Louis Vuitton, and our own Xbox Finance team can now use Azure Blockchain Service to quickly expand their networks with lower costs, shifting their focus from infrastructure management to application development and business logic,” Russinovich said.
Microsoft said that Quorum was a “natural choice” as it is built on the Ethereum protocol, which has the world’s largest blockchain developer community.
“We are incredibly proud of the success Quorum has had over the last four years, as organizations around the world use Quorum to solve complex business and societal problems via blockchain solutions,” said Umar Farooq, global head of Blockchain, J.P. Morgan.
“We are delighted to partner alongside Microsoft as we continue to strengthen Quorum and expand capabilities and services on the platform. Azure will bring unique strengths to enterprise clients using Quorum.”
According to the official release, Quorum will continue to power J.P. Morgan and Microsoft blockchain programs and first-party apps, such as the Interbank Information Network, JPM Coin and Microsoft’s Xbox royalty payment process, among others.
Going forward, Microsoft plans to add new capabilities to Azure Blockchain Service, including digital token management, improved application integration, and support for R3’s Corda Enterprise.
Last year, Microsoft launched Azure Blockchain Workbench, which enables developers to deploy a blockchain ledger along with a set of relevant Azure services most often used to build a blockchain-based application. In November, it announced the initial release of the Azure Blockchain Development Kit, which extends the capabilities of its blockchain developer templates and Azure Blockchain Workbench.
Earlier this week, Amazon Web Services (AWS) also opened up its Amazon Managed Blockchain service, which simplifies creating and managing scalable blockchain networks, for general availability.
