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Yongchang He
Yongchang He

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Hyperledger Fabric and MSP

The purpose of building this blog is to write down the detailed operation history and my memo for learning the dApps and Web3 programming.

MSP - Membership Service Provider

What is Hyperledger Fabric?

Hyperledger Fabric, hosted by Linux Foundation, is a modular and extensible open-source system for deploying and operating permissioned and private blockchain.

It is the first truly extensible blockchain network for distributed applications written in standard, general-purpose programming languages, without systemic dependency on a native cryptocurrency. This is a sharp contrast to existing platforms requiring domain-specific programming languages or relying on a cryptocurrency.

Hyperledger Fabric also allows component pluggability, such as membership, database, and consensus. Typically, the membership layer can authenticate users and grant them access based on their access level and the system policy.

What is Hyperledger Fabric Identity Management?

Identity Management refers to the Membership Service Provider (MSP), which manages and authenticates all the participants/users on the network.

If any participants connect to the network, the owner can register them on MSP, where specific information about them will be stored. After that, a certificate will be generated and issued by the MSP, which will act as their identity over the blockchain. They will need this certificate identity for all transactions on the Fabric network. So, MSP provides you access control over the permissions.

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For example, in the case of academic credentials, only universities and educational institutes have permission to create new transactions over the network, which means only they can upload the academic credentials over the network.

On the other hand, students can only have the read permissions allowing them to view their educational credentials or report cards without giving them the authority to perform any functionalities over the network.

Benefits of Hyperledger Fabric

  • Permissioned network

Establish decentralized trust in a network of known participants rather than an open network of anonymous participants.

  • Confidential transactions

Expose only the data you want to share to the parties you want to share it with.

  • Pluggable architecture

Tailor the blockchain to industry needs with a pluggable architecture rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

  • Easy to get started

Program smart contracts in the languages your team works in today, instead of learning custom languages and architectures.


References

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3190508.3190538
https://www.ibm.com/topics/hyperledger
https://www.hyperledger.org/use/fabric

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