Transparent Management of BFT Systems with TEE

Abstract

Achieving distribution transparency is an important goal in distributed system development since it ensures a positive user experience for end-users. In our previous research, we utilized the Intel SGX Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) to facilitate trusted execution of client-side Byzantine Fault-Tolerance (BFT) library functionality on the server-side, enabling legacy clients to access replicated services in a transparent manner. Nonetheless, improving distribution transparency increases the middleware layer's complexity, posing a hindrance to BFT systems' ability to have more transparency in deploying and managing BFT protocols. To resolve this issue, we propose a configurable framework that can manage BFT systems' middleware components flexibly, utilizing a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) of the emerging RISC-V architecture. The framework offers large-size enclaves that securely execute BFT protocols and other middleware functions, such as network processing, permitting the transparent management of server-side BFT systems without imposing a significant overhead.