Asadullah Khalid, Software Engineer Blockchain/DLT Telekom MMS
Mujtaba Idrees, Advanced Software Engineer Telekom MMS
Hira Siddiqui, Advanced Software Engineer Telekom MMS
Blockchain technology has radically changed how industries work. Instead of offering a one-fits-all-solution, it excels with implementations specifically designed for different use-cases. One of the various types are permissioned blockchains, which play an important role in regulated areas as they maintain an access control layer to allow certain actions to be performed only by specific identifiable participants in the consortium. The built-in configuration of such blockchains controls the participant’s transactions and defines their roles in which each participant can access and contribute to the blockchain. Permissioned blockchains are popular among industry-level enterprises and businesses, for which security, identity, and role definition are important. However, for many enterprises and organizations, it is not easy to bring up and maintain such networks. Telekom MMS is tackling that problem with their newly developed open-source tool called “Fabricator”.
One of the most important permissioned blockchain infrastructures is Hyperledger Fabric. According to the specifics of this type, only people or machines that have been authorized in advance can participate. The Hyperledger Fabric network has a complicated set up and scaling process. This poses an impediment for organizations that want to participate in a consortium or integrate the blockchain into their own structure. Even more so, quite often they lack the required knowledge and technical insight to handle a large-scale consortium ledger in production. Bootstrapping and managing such a network should be a simple and hassle-free task – manageable without deep understanding and involvement in technical depth.
For that exact reason, the Fabricator of Telekom MMS comes into play as it prevents companies from having to deal with the complicated workflows of managing Hyperledger Fabric themselves. Instead, using a simple command-line tool, the network sets up itself offering a configuration specifically tailored to the unique needs of any consortium. In a nutshell, Fabricator provides a scalable generic template for bootstrapping Hyperledger Fabric networks in production environments. It can be configured for various requirements with minimal effort which makes it unique, as these features are not directly provided by Hyperledger Fabric.
With the help of the Fabricator, you can not only setup and bootstrap the Fabric network, but also scale the existing network through the dynamic addition of new network components, users and organizations. Additionally, the Fabricator simplifies your channel as well as chaincode management. To keep the bootstrapped network running properly and monitor the usage, support by the Hyperledger Explorer is provided. Similarly catering to the real-world production use cases, the CA issued certificates for network entities can easily be integrated, reenrolled or revoked anytime.
Fabricator is not the only tool aiming to solve the maintainability issues of Hyperledger Fabric networks. One of the most famous tools is “mini fabric”. Here is a nice comparison of Fabricator with mini fabric:
| Feature | Fabricator | Minifab |
|---|---|---|
Automatic generation of scripts and docker specific files |
✅ |
✅ |
Dynamically add new organization in running network |
✅ |
✅ |
Dynamically add new peers and orderers in an organization |
✅ |
❌ |
Channel query, create, join, channel update |
✅ |
✅ |
Chaincode install, approve, instantiation, invoke, query |
✅ |
✅ |
Ledger height and block query and Hyperledger Explorer support |
✅ |
✅ |
Node monitoring, health check and discovery |
❌ |
✅ |
Decentralized distribution of ordering nodes between organizations |
✅ |
❌ |
CI/CD integration by design |
✅ |
❌ |
Minimum tested fabric version |
2.0 |
1.4.4 |
The Fabricator is another step to make the blockchain world easier and more efficient. With the tool finally being open-source, the tech and developer blockchain community can also make use of it and together we can drive change.
Start now using the open-source tool with the help of the Fabricator Documentation!
Or use our Github!
Asadullah Khalid, Software Engineer Blockchain/DLT Telekom MMS
Asadullah Khalid works as a Software Engineer in the area of Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies at Telekom MMS and holds a Master degree in Applied Mathematics for Networks and Data Science from Hochschule Mittweida. He has been a part of the team since the past 3 years and has a vast experience with both public and permissioned Blockchains. He has also been involved in some research projects and scientific publications on behalf of Telekom MMS. He is currently working as one of the core developers in the Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) streams at Telekom MMS.
Mujtaba Idrees, Advanced Software Engineer Telekom MMS
Since his graduation as a Software Engineer in 2015, Mujtaba has worked in IT industries of Asia and Europe for seven years in various capacities. He has extensive experience in software development, managing teams, leading projects from inception until customer delivery. Mujtaba has done masters in Distributed Systems Engineering from TU Dresden and has been part of the team for the past 4 years. Besides development and project management, he has also collaborated on a few research and open-source projects. His current focus is on Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) and is leading this stream in Telekom MMS.
Hira Siddiqui, Advanced Software Engineer Telekom MMS
Hira Siddiqui works as an Advanced Software Engineer at Telekom and has done her Masters in Distributed Systems from TU Dresden. Since her graduation she has worked in multiple innovative blockchain technologies like Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). She is also the grand-prize winner of Deutsche Telekom’s 2021 Frauen-MINT-Award and is a staunch supporter of bringing more women into the fields of technology and blockchain.
Ob Digitalisierungsexpert*in, Werkstudent*in oder Schülerpraktikant*in – Hier berichten unsere Gastautoren aus ihrem Alltag.
