Hyperledger Overview: Introduce Hyperledger, Public Blockchain & Private Blockchain (Part 1)

Lina Network

July 21, 2020

This series of introductory articles about Hyperledger consists of two parts: Overview of Hyperledger and Summary of Hyperledger Framework. This article will provide information about the Hyperledger project, the Linux Foundation, the concept of Public Blockchain and Private Blockchain, and a summary of how Hyperledger works.

Learn about the Hyperledger Framework here.

What is a Hyperledger?

Hyperledger is an open source project created by the Linux Foundation in 2015 with the aim of promoting Blockchain technology across industries to ensure accountability, transparency and trust among partner businesses, through That, helps business networks and transactions be more effectively implemented.

Put simply, hyperledger is an ecosystem that allows businesses to deploy Blockchain solutions to industry problems. The hyperledger itself is not a Blockchain, cryptocurrency or a company or corporation.

What is the Linux Foundation?

The Linux Foundation is the founder of the largest and most popular open source operating system in the world - Linux.

The Linux Foundation creates a community of many important open source projects used by large corporations in many different fields, such as:

Big Data and Analytic: ODPi, R Consortium
Networking: OpenDaylight, OPNFV
Embedded: Dronecode, Zephyr
Web tools: JS Foundation, Node.js
Cloud computing: Cloud Foundry, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Open Container Initiative
Automotive: Automotive Grade Linux
Security: Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII)
Blockchain: Hyperledger

What is Public Blockchain and Private Blockchain?

To understand how Hyperledger works, we first need to understand the concept of 2 types of Blockchain today:

Public Blockchain - The public Blockchain network, also known as the Permissionless Blockchain, allows everyone to participate in this network. Good examples of public blockchain networks include Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Private Blockchain - Private Blockchain networks, also known as the Permissioned Blockchain, require verification of each individual’s information before being allowed to participate, and usually the parties in the network will know each other. Hyperledger is a typical example of Private Blockchain.

Public Blockchain	Private Blockchain
Open network, anyone can join	There are limited requirements. New members must be invited to join.
Nodes have equal rights (decentralized network)	Only a few nodes are allowed to create new transactions
Slow transaction completion speed	Fast transaction completion speed
Frequency of approving long transactions	Frequency of approvals of transactions is short
The cost of making each transaction is high	The cost of each transaction is relatively low
Anonymous	Nonymous
Does not require the members to trust each other	Requires members to trust each other
Consume a lot of energy	Consume less power

Table 1: Comparison of characteristics of Public Blockchain and Private Blockchain networks

The limitations of Public Blockchain compared to Private Blockchain

Public Blockchain networks allow anyone to participate, initiate and read transactions in the form of anonymity, such as Bitcoin Blockchain and Ethereum Blockchain. This can be taken advantage of to commit misconduct. In addition, the Public Blockchain network is not suitable for conducting transactions that require privacy and security.

Hyperledger uses a private Blockchain network, minimizing security risks, ensuring that only parties can see the transaction, instead of displaying all transaction information to everyone in the network. . Therefore, Hyperledger provides all the outstanding advantages of Blockchain technology for businesses: data privacy, information sharing, immutability, with a full range of security protocols.

How Hyperledger works

At the Hyperledger network, nodes are directly linked to each other and only the ledger of related nodes is updated with transaction details. The nodes that support the transaction only hold a sufficient amount of information to complete the task.

Suppose there are two individuals in the system who want to conduct transactions, A and B. A will go through an application to search for B in the list of participants in the network and initiate transactions. After the transaction has completed authentication, nodes of A and B will be connected and return the agreed result. The agreement results of both parties must match in order for the transaction to be validated. For other transactions that involve more parties, there are other rules that may apply.