Hyperledger and Open Source Blockchain Platforms
Blockchain platforms are software or infrastructure that enables the creation, deployment and management of blockchain networks and applications. It provides the necessary tools, protocols, and frameworks for developers, businesses, and organizations to build and operate blockchain-based solutions.
A blockchain platform typically includes the following components:
Blockchain Network: The platform builds and manages the underlying blockchain network, which is a distributed and decentralized network of nodes that maintain a common ledger of transactions.
Consensus Mechanism: The platform defines the consensus algorithm or mechanism that governs how nodes in the network agree on the validity and order of transactions. Common consensus mechanisms include proof of work (PoW), proof of stake (PoS), and practical Byzantine fault tolerance (PBFT).
Smart Contracts: Most blockchain platforms support the execution of smart contracts, which are self-executing contracts with predefined rules and conditions. Smart contracts enable the automation and enforcement of agreements on the blockchain.
Development Tools: The platform provides software development kits (SDKs), programming interfaces (APIs) and other tools to facilitate the development of blockchain applications. These tools often include libraries, compilers, and frameworks that facilitate the creation of smart contracts and dApps.
Security and Privacy: Blockchain platforms offer security measures to protect the network and its participants from attacks and unauthorized access. They can implement encryption, cryptography, digital signatures and access control mechanisms. Some platforms also address privacy concerns by offering features such as private transactions or permissioned networks.
Governance and Upgrades: Many blockchain platforms include governance mechanisms that enable stakeholders to participate in decision-making processes. This may include voting on protocol upgrades, proposing changes, and managing the development of the platform. Some platforms have self-healing capabilities that allow protocol upgrades without requiring a hard fork.
Integration Capabilities: Blockchain platforms often offer integration options to connect to external systems, databases, or APIs. This allows developers to leverage existing infrastructure and interact with off-chain data sources or services
For example;
Ethereum: Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain platform that supports smart contracts and the development of decentralized applications (dApps). It uses the native cryptocurrency called Ether (ETH) and is known for its programmable functionality that allows developers to build complex applications on the blockchain.
Hyperledger Fabric: Hyperledger Fabric is an open-source, permissioned blockchain platform developed by the Linux Foundation. It provides a modular architecture that allows businesses to create private, scalable and secure blockchain networks. Fabric supports smart contracts written in various programming languages and offers features such as channel-based privacy, flexible consensus mechanisms, and membership services.
Corda: Corda is an open source blockchain platform designed for enterprise use cases. It focuses on privacy and security by using a permissioned network architecture. Corda enables businesses to transact directly, securely and privately using smart contracts. It also provides a unique “notary” service to verify transactions without revealing sensitive data.
Stellar: Stellar is an open-source blockchain platform designed for cross-border transactions and issuance of digital assets. It offers fast, low-cost transactions and supports the creation of tokens and assets on the network. Stellar uses a consensus protocol called Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) and has a built-in decentralized exchange for asset trading.
Quorum: Quorum is an open-source blockchain platform built on Ethereum but adapted for private enterprise networks. It includes features such as private actions, network permissions, and advanced data privacy. Quorum is widely used in industries such as finance and supply chain management where privacy and confidentiality are critical.
IOTA: IOTA is an open source blockchain platform designed specifically for the Internet of Things (IoT). It uses a directed acyclic graph (DAG) called Tangle instead of a traditional blockchain. IOTA aims to provide a scalable, free and secure infrastructure for machine-to-machine transactions and data transfer in IoT ecosystems.
Tezos: Tezos is an open-source blockchain platform with a self-modifying governance mechanism. It allows stakeholders to vote on proposed protocol upgrades without the need for hard forks. Tezos supports smart contracts and offers formal verification, a technique for mathematically proving the correctness of code.
Hyperledger*
Hyperledger Fabric is an open-source, enterprise-grade permissioned distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform designed for use in enterprise contexts that offers some key differentiators over other popular distributed ledger or blockchain platforms.
One key point of differentiation is that Hyperledger is founded under the Linux Foundation, which has a long and very successful history of nurturing open source projects under open governance that cultivates strong sustainable communities and thriving ecosystems. While Hyperledger is governed by various technical steering committees, the Hyperledger Fabric project is managed by various maintainers from multiple organizations. It has a development community that has grown to more than 35 organizations and nearly 200 developers since its initial commitments.
Fabric features a highly modular and configurable architecture that enables innovation, versatility and optimization for a wide range of industry use cases, including banking, finance, insurance, healthcare, human resources, supply chain and even digital music distribution.
Fabric is the first distributed ledger platform to support smart contracts written in general-purpose programming languages such as Java, Go, and Node.js rather than restricted domain-specific languages (DSL). This means that most businesses already have the necessary skill set to develop smart contracts and there is no need for additional training to learn a new language or DSL.
The Fabric platform is also permitted; This means that, unlike a public, permissionless network, participants know each other rather than being anonymous and are therefore completely untrustworthy. This means that even if the participants do not fully trust each other (for example, they may be competitors in the same industry), a network can be operated under a governance model that relies on the trust that exists between the participants; a legal agreement or framework for handling disputes.
One of the key differentiators of the platform is that it supports pluggable consensus protocols, which allow the platform to be more effectively customized to fit specific use cases and trust models. For example, when deployed within a single organization or operated by a trusted authority, purely Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus may be considered unnecessary and an excessive drag on performance and production. In such cases, a crash fault-tolerant (CFT) consensus protocol may be more than sufficient, while in a multi-party, decentralized use case, a more traditional Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) consensus protocol may be necessary.
Fabric can leverage consensus protocols that do not require a native cryptocurrency to incentivize costly mining or support the execution of smart contracts. Avoiding cryptocurrency reduces some key risk/attack vectors, and the absence of cryptographic mining operations means the platform can be deployed at almost the same operational cost as any other distributed system.
The combination of these different design features makes Fabric one of the better-performing platforms available today in terms of both transaction processing and transaction confirmation latency, enabling privacy and confidentiality of transactions and smart contracts (what Fabric calls “chaincode”). makes it happen. who implements them.
"Architectural"
The main components of Hyperledger are as follows:
Assets: Asset definitions enable almost anything of monetary value to be exchanged over the network, from raw food to antique cars to currency futures.
Chaincode: Chaincode execution is partitioned from the transaction order, limiting the required levels of trust and verification between node types and optimizing network scalability and performance.
Ledger Features: Immutable, shared ledger encodes the entire transaction history for each channel and includes SQL-like query capability for efficient auditing and dispute resolution. Some features of the notebook:
Query and update the ledger using key-based searches, range queries, and compound key queries
Read-only queries using a rich query language (if CouchDB is used as the state database)
Read-only history queries – Enable data source scenarios by querying the ledger history for a key
Transactions consist of versions of keys/values read in the chaincode (read set) and keys/values written in the chaincode (write set).
Transactions include the signature of each approving spouse and are submitted to the ordering service
Transactions are sorted into blocks and “distributed” from an ordering service to peers in the channel
Peers verify transactions against approval policies and enforce policies
Before adding a block, a version check is performed to ensure that the states of the read entities have not changed since the chaincode execution time.
Immutability exists when a transaction is verified and committed
A channel's ledger contains a configuration block that defines policies, access control lists, and other relevant information
Channels include Membership Service Provider instances that allow cryptocurrencies to be derived from different certificate authorities
Security :
Channels and private data collection enable private and confidential multi-party transactions often required by competing businesses and regulated industries exchanging assets across a common network.
Security and Membership Services – Permission membership provides a trusted blockchain network where participants know that all transactions can be detected and monitored by authorized regulators and
auditors.
Consensus – A unique approach to consensus provides the flexibility and scalability needed for the organization.
