All about Hyperledger

Hyperledger Project is a software platform under Blockchain Technology. It helps developers by providing the required tools and framework to create private blockchains.

Contents

• Introduction
• What is Hyperledger?
  • What is the need for it?
  • Solutions Provided
  • Features
• Hyperledger Projects
  • Fabric
  • Sawtooth
  • Burrow
  • Indy
  • Iroha
• Top Hyperledger Tools
• Use Cases
• A few Case Studies
• Conclusion

Introduction

This article covers the major details of the famous Hyperledger Project by the Linux Foundation. It goes through by understanding its features, projects, tools, applications, and use cases.

What is Hyperledger?

According to the Hyperledger organization, It is an open-source global collaborative effort to create cross-industry blockchain technologies. Hyperledger is hosted by the Linux Foundation, which includes technology, supply chain, finance experts, and banking leaders.

First, to be clear, let’s see what Hyperledger is not? It is neither a blockchain nor a company. And it’s definitely not a cryptocurrency. It is an open-source project.

Whenever we talk about blockchain, the first thought that pops up is Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, if you see these public blockchains are B2C (Business-to-Customer). On the other hand, Hyperledger serves B2B (Business-to-Business). It consists of several tools and frameworks to build blockchains. 

Developers use the Hyperledger software platform to create a private blockchain for business organizations.

Blockchain makes transactions trustworthy, secure, and private among parties.

Also read: How does Blockchain work?

What is the need for Hyperledger?

Why companies and organizations can’t use Bitcoin or Ethereum? There are a few features of public blockchain which do not favor it for organizational usage. 

The Problem: Public Blockchain requires each network participant to validate the block under the consensus mechanism. This is the major challenge when it comes to scalability and confidentiality. 

That’s where hyperledger comes into the picture; it allows to develop the permissioned blockchains with high scalability. 

Solutions provided

• Maintains privacy and confidentiality among related parties.
• It creates channels (virtual blockchain networks) on top of the physical blockchain to ensure regulated accessibility and consensus control.
• Provides essential tools, libraries, and frameworks to build the private enterprise-grade blockchain.

Features

• Open-Source Blockchain Umbrella Projects
• Modular Design Architecture
• Develops Scalable Blockchain Networks
• Highly secured
• Interoperable
• High-end API support
• Efficient processing and transactions

Hyperledger Projects

Hyperledger platform stages numerous projects under its umbrella. The popular projects are as follows:

• Hyperledger Fabric

Fabric is a development platform for creating blockchain applications, solutions, and products. The framework uses containers to host smart contracts chain code that includes the system application logic.

Top Hyperledger Tools

Following are some of the top tools used:

• Caliper: It is a Blockchain benchmark tool that allows users to compute the performance and implementation of a particular Blockchain based on a few predefined use cases.
• Explorer: It is the Blockchain module explicitly made for creating user-driven web applications.
• Cello: It is the Blockchain module toolkit that fosters the Blockchain ecosystem’s on-demand ‘as-a-service’ deployment model.
• Ursa: This shared cryptographic library allows users to secure against cryptographic work’s replication.
• Composer: It serves as an open development framework and toolset for the easier development of Blockchain applications and smart contracts.
• Quilt: This business Blockchain tool enables interoperability among ledger systems by implementing Inter Ledger Protocol.

Use Cases

Following are a few of the many uses of HL:

• Supply Chain – Efficient tracking and ensure quality
• Healthcare – Introduces easy traceability, transparency, and security.
• Trade Finance – Cost-effective and trusting ecosystem with faster transactions.
• Insurance – Eliminates paperwork, easy insurance processing and maintenance.
• Energy – Enhanced energy management system with reliability

Real-World Applications

• Walmart is using Fabric to enhance food supply chain transparency.
• ChainYard and IBM collaborated to reduce the onboarding process using Fabric
• ScanTrust used Sawtooth to improve supply chain transparency and traceability.
• FDA used Fabric to improve the security of healthcare data.
• The National Bank of Cambodia is using Iroha for asset management.

These are just a few of the many case studies of HL utilization.

Also, read about Decentralized Applications (Dapps)

Conclusion

Hope you now have a brief idea about Hyperledger Project and its tools. If you have any queries, please share them in the link below. 

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