Hyperledger Fabric Node Types and Performance Study

Abstract

Permissioned blockchain option is emerging as an alternative solution to business administration for its trustworthiness in place of or in tandem with conventional solutions. Hyperledger Fabric is a well-defined permissioned blockchain. It consists of various types of nodes such as nodes for endorsement, ordering and commitment, and they play a role in the performance equation, and a sound understanding of their performance is essential to address and resolve the issue of performance optimization in the perspective from the backend architectures and systems. This paper presents quantitative models for the performance of those above-mentioned primary types of nodes in the permissioned blockchains. Each type of nodes is characterized in terms of transaction/block queue size and waiting time, and the transaction/block arrival rates and the transaction/block service rates are considered for simulation purpose. The proposed models for the various types of nodes in Hyperledger Fabric provide a quantitative basis to assure and optimize the design of each type of nodes and ultimately the overall performance of the permissioned blockchain. Extensive numerical simulations are conducted and presented.