What is Hyperledger?

Overview

The purpose of this blog is to give an introduction to what is hyper ledger, tools, and frameworks of the hyperledger, and to eliminate confusion between the two paradigms permissionless and permission blockchain models.

Now let’s start with the beginning of hyperledger,

Topics

What is hyperledger?

2. History of hyperledger

3. Hyperledger Frameworks & Tools.

4. Permissionless and Permissioned blockchain models

5. Use cases of hyperledger.

What is hyperledger?

Before I tell you what Hyperledger is, let me tell you what a Hyperledger isn’t. Because with so many blockchains around the IT industry today, it’s really easy to get confused.

So, to begin with, Hyperledger is not a company, not a cryptocurrency, not a blockchain.

What exactly Hyperledger is?

Answer:

Basically, Hyperledger is rather something like a hub for open industrial blockchain Development. Hyperledger does not support Bitcoin and any other cryptocurrency. But the platform is fulfilled by blockchain technology.

Hyperledger does not intend to establish any kind of CryptoCoin like “Hyperledger coin”.

“Hyperledger is an umbrella project of open source blockchains or related tools.”

Hyperledger Project is a collaborative effort to create a blockchain for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) transactions.

Hyperledger blockchains are generally permission blockchain, which means that the users that join the network are authenticated and authorized to participate on the network.

Hyperledger does not refer to any specific technology or a tool rather it refers to a project where multiple teams are collaborating to develop open source and distributed ledger technology (DLT).

History of Hyperledger

Let’s take a look at the history of Hyperledger. In December 2015, the Linux Foundation announced the creation of the Hyperledger projects. In early 2016, the project began accepting proposals for incubation of codebases and other technologies as core parts.

On 12 July 2017, the projects announced it’s production-ready Hyperledger Fabric 1.0 and it started to gain popularity.

In July 2017, London Stock Exchange Group in a partnership with IBM announced that it will create a Blockchain designed for digitally issuing shares of Italian companies. Hyperledger Fabric will form the basis of the platforms.

Hyperledger Frameworks & Tools

Frameworks:

1. Hyperledger Fabric :

Hyperledger Fabric is a blockchain framework implementation and one of the Hyperledger project hosted by The Linux Foundation. Hyperledger Fabric leverages container technology to host smart contracts called “chaincode” that comprise the logic of the application of the system.

2. Hyperledger Burrow :

Hyperledger Burrow was released in December 2014. Currently, under incubation, Hyperledger Burrow is a permissible smart contract machine that provides a modular blockchain client with a permissioned smart contracts interpreter built- in part to the specification of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

3. Hyperledger Indy :

Hyperledger Indy is a distributed ledger purpose-built for decentralized identities.

4. Hyperledger Iroha :

Hyperledger Iroha is designed to be simple and easy to incorporate into an infrastructural project requiring distributed ledger technology.

Hyperledger Iroha features a simple construction; modern, domain-driven C++ designs, emphasis on mobile application development.

5. Hyperledger Sawtooth :

Hyperledger Sawtooth, contributed by Intel, is a blockchain framework that utilizes a modular platform for building, deploying, & running distributed ledgers.

Tools:

1. Hyperledger Composer:

Hyperledger Composer is a set of collaboration tools for building blockchain business networks that make it simple and fast for business owners and developers to create chain codes and blockchain applications to solve the business problem.

Built with JavaScript, leveraging modern tools including npm, node.js, CLI and popular editors, Composer offers business-centric abstractions as well as sample apps with easy to test devops

processes to create robust blockchain solutions that drive alignment across business requirements with a technical development.

2. Hyperledger Explorer :

Hyperledger Explorer is a blockchain module and one of the Hyperledger project hosted by The Linux Foundations.

Designed to create a user-friendly Web application, Hyperledger Explorer can invoke, view, deploy or query blocks, transactions and associated data, network pieces of information (name, status, list of nodes), chain codes and transaction families, as well as any other relevant pieces of information stored in the ledger.

Afterall, If you have been following Blockchain, you would see the term permission blockchain being thrown around. What is the core differences between a permission vs. a permissionless blockchain?

Permission Blockchain (Private Blockchain):

Permission blockchains act as “closed ecosystem”, where a user is not freely able to join the network. This type of blockchain is built to allow a consortium of organizations to efficiently exchange information and record transaction.

The permission blockchain is preferred by centralized organizations, which leverage the power of the network for their own, internal business operations.

Company consortiums are also likely to employ private blockchains to securely record transactions, and exchange pieces of information between one another.

“Additionally, only approved people or computers entities have the possibility of running nodes on the network, validating transaction blocks, issuing transactions, executing chain codes or reading the history of transactions.”

HYPERLEDGER is an example of Permissioned Blockchain.

Now, let’s look at Some practical use-cases for the Hyperledger.

Supply Chain :

End-to-End tracking and allover visibility of supply chain process in real-time.

Healthcare :

Patient Databases/Indexes on the blockchain, Medical Supply Chain, Management, Transparency and Automation within the patient-to-hospital or patient-to-doctor transactions.

Government (Financial) :

Minimize fraud of government, digitize most processes, validation; integrity of citizen registry data.

Business :

Set pre-defined rules for the transaction between two or more organizations engaged in a partnership.

Voting :

Reduce voter fraud, Minimize government fraud.

Distributed Storage/Computing:

Using Hyperledger we can decentralize cloud storages and computing. Solutions built in this domain will incentivize user for sharing data or computing power.

Permissionless Blockchain (Public Blockchain):

State of the art Permissionless Blockchain protocols based on Proof of Work consensus algorithms are open source and not permission. Anyone can participate or join, without permission.

Public Blockchain allows every user to create a personal address and begin interacting with the network, by submitting transactions, and hence adding entries to the ledger.

Basically, all users have the choice of running a node on the system or employing the mining protocols to help verify transactions.

So, “Anyone can read transaction on the permissionless block explorer.”

Examples: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, Dash, Litecoin, etc.

Conclusion :

Based on the above information, Permissionless blockchains are bound to be more open to users and tend to have very tricky protocols.

On another side, Permissioned blockchains, which are good for internal business operations, have different dynamics, thus allowing the central governing entities or consortium of entities to decide on problems referring to how the network is created, its protocols and what parties can do.

So, I just try to explain information about HYPERLEDGER and some paradigms like PUBLIC & PRIVATE Blockchain. I hope you find this knowledge interesting and informative.