Operations Smart Contract to Realize Decentralized System Operations Workflow for Consortium Blockchain

TL;DR

This paper introduces Operations Smart Contract (OpsSC), a decentralized workflow system for consortium blockchain operations, specifically implemented for Hyperledger Fabric v2.x to improve efficiency and reduce manual tasks.

Contribution

The paper proposes and implements OpsSC, a novel smart contract-based method to automate and decentralize system operations across organizations in consortium blockchains.

Findings

OpsSC enables decentralized execution of channel and chaincode operations.

Implementation is open-sourced as a Hyperledger Labs project.

OpsSC clarifies detailed operational workflows for blockchain management.

Abstract

Enterprises have paid attention to consortium blockchains like Hyperledger Fabric, which is one of the most promising platforms, for efficient decentralized transactions without depending on any particular organization. A consortium blockchain-based system will be typically built across multiple organizations. In such blockchain-based systems, system operations across multiple organizations in a decentralized manner are essential to maintain the value of introducing consortium blockchains. Decentralized system operations have recently been becoming realistic with the evolution of consortium blockchains. For instance, the release of Hyperledger Fabric v2.x, in which individual operational tasks for a blockchain network, such as command execution of configuration change of channels (Fabric's sub-networks) and upgrade of chaincodes (Fabric's smart contracts), can be partially executed in a decentralized manner. However, the operations workflows also include the preceding procedure of pre-sharing, coordinating, and pre-agreeing the operational information (e.g., configuration parameters) among organizations, after which operation executions can be conducted, and this preceding procedure relies on costly manual tasks. To realize efficient decentralized operations workflows for consortium blockchain-based systems in general, we propose a decentralized inter-organizational operations method that we call Operations Smart Contract (OpsSC), which defines an operations workflow as a smart contract. Furthermore, we design and implement OpsSC for blockchain network operations with Hyperledger Fabric v2.x. This paper presents OpsSC for operating channels and chaincodes, which are essential for managing the blockchain networks, through clarifying detailed workflows of those operations. The implementation of OpsSC has been open-sourced and registered as one of Hyperledger Labs projects.