Knowing Hyperledger Fabric: A Permissioned Blockchain Framework

What is Hyperledger Fabric?

Hyperledger Fabric is an open-source, permissioned blockchain framework, started by The Linux Foundation in 2015. It is a general-purpose, modular framework that offers unique identity management and access control features, which make it useful for a variety of industrial applications such as tracking supply chains, trade finance, rewards, and loyalty, as well as clearing and settlement of financial assets.

How does Hyperledger Fabric Work?

A Hyperledger Fabric network is made up of unique organizations (or members) that interact with each other on the network. For example, an organization could be a bank in a network made up of financial institutions or a shipping partner in a supply chain network. Each and every organization has a Fabric certificate authority and one or more peer nodes. The details about each of these concepts and components are below:

An organization is defined by a root certificate specific to that organization in a network. Users and Peers(other components) in that organization are also identified by certificates, and these certificates are derived from this root certificate, ensuring other organizations in the network can relate a user to their organization.

A root certificate is stored in the Fabric certificate authority (CA). The Fabric CA also provides certificates for users in an organization.

A Fabric network also has an ordering service shared by all members of the network. The ordering service makes sure new transactions on the network are properly ordered in new blocks and have the proper endorsements, then broadcasts a new block of transactions to peer nodes in each organization.

Benefits of Hyperledger Fabric

Open Source

Hyperledger Fabric platform is an open-source, permissioned blockchain framework hosted by The Linux Foundation.

Permissioned

Hyperledger Fabric networks are permissioned, meaning all participating member’s identities are known and authenticated by the network. This benefit is particularly useful in industries like supply chain, healthcare, banking, and insurance where data cannot be exposed to unknown entities. For example, an insurance company on a Hyperledger Fabric blockchain network can share customers’ claim data with permissioned parties to maintain customer privacy.

Performance

Hyperledger Fabric is permissioned so does not need to solve for Byzantine Fault Tolerance which can cause slower performance when validating transactions on the network.