Fujitsu Speeds Up Transaction Processing on the Blockchain
2017年7月31日 - 12:08PM
JCN Newswire (英)
Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. today announced the development of
technology that accelerates transaction processing for Hyperledger
Fabric, one of the Hyperledger blockchain frameworks hosted by The
Linux Foundation.
The blockchain is a technology that creates systems with excellent
resistance to falsification while preserving high transparency and
reliability, all without centralized management. It is expected to
have applications in a variety of fields, particularly in
finance.
Now, Fujitsu Laboratories has developed technology to speed up
transaction processing by making the processing of communications
between applications and the blockchain platform, which had been
the source of bottlenecks, more efficient. In a trial where this
technology was implemented in Hyperledger Fabric v0.6.1(1), it
increased transaction performance by approximately 2.7 times
compared to the previous method.
With this technology, it has become possible to apply blockchain
technology to online transaction systems, which require high
performance.
Details of this technology were announced at P2P Financial Systems
2017, an international conference about the blockchain held in
London July 20-21.
Development Background
The blockchain creates a shared ledger system that, without a
centralized manager, is highly transparent and reliable while being
extremely difficult to falsify, by requiring the parties involved
to mutually verify the accuracy of the transaction data and
preserving it in a chain format.
The open source blockchain framework Hyperledger Fabric, being
developed through Hyperledger, in which Fujitsu Limited is a
premier member, is the focus of much attention as a blockchain that
is building a robust commercial transaction platform. Hyperledger
Fabric uses a consortium-type(2) structure in which the number of
participants is limited, and is being trialed for use in a variety
of fields, particularly finance, but also for supply-chain
management in manufacturing, data conversion of insurance policies,
real estate contracts, license management, and energy
transactions.
Issues
With blockchain, groups of nodes based on the number of
participants form a network, and work together through the network
to perform a series of processes from executing transactions to
validating the legitimacy of transactions. For this reason, the
number of transactions that can be executed per unit of time is
limited by communication bottlenecks through the network, compared
to previous centralized systems, making it difficult to apply the
technology to things like online transaction systems, which demand
high performance, including the ability to immediately process
large volumes of transactions.
http://www.acnnewswire.com/topimg/Low_FujitsuBlockchain73117Fig1.jpg
Figure 1: Transaction processing on the blockchain
About the Newly Developed Technology
With the blockchain, while consensus is formed between
participating nodes, transactions are processed by applications
reading and writing data on the shared ledger, with safety ensured
by linking the transaction data in chain format to be managed.
Using its proprietary analysis technology, Fujitsu Laboratories
learned that, under network conditions in which a response time of
about 64 milliseconds or less is required, such as the case where a
consortium-type blockchain is operated at multiple locations within
Japan, communications between the applications and the blockchain
platform during transaction processing are the primary cause of
bottlenecks.
Now, based on these analysis results, Fujitsu Laboratories has
developed the following two technologies to improve transaction
performance speed by reducing the number of communications between
the applications and the blockchain platform. Features of the newly
developed technologies are as follows:
1. Differential Update State (DUS) Functionality
When processing transactions on the blockchain, a commonly used
method is to retrieve the specified data, then handle the
computational processing in the application before writing it back
to the blockchain platform. Fujitsu Laboratories has now developed
functionality that executes only differential computations on the
specified data, in one processing action on the blockchain
platform, and functionality that reduces the number of computations
directly linked with the number of communications.
2. Compound Request (CR) Functionality
Fujitsu Laboratories developed functionality to aggregate multiple
processes to send to the blockchain platform for batch execution.
This functionality not only makes processing on the blockchain
platform more efficient by aggregating multiple processes, it also
reduces the number of communications. The functionality maintains
accuracy by rewinding to the origin point of the batch execution if
a partial error occurs in the aggregated processes, and
reprocessing.
http://www.acnnewswire.com/topimg/Low_FujitsuBlockchain73117Fig2.jpg
Figure 2: Example showing the reduced number of communications due
to the DUS functionality and the CR functionality
Effects
Fujitsu Laboratories implemented this technology in Hyperledger
Fabric v0.6.1 and measured transaction performance on a blockchain
platform consisting of four servers. Whereas the previous method
could handle 500 transactions per second, Fujitsu Laboratories
achieved 1,350 transactions per second using this newly developed
technology, an improvement of approximately 2.7 times.
Future Plans
With this newly developed technology, in terms of performance, the
Hyperledger Fabric framework has become applicable to online
transaction systems that demand high performance in excess of 1,000
transactions per second, such as those demanded by financial
institutions.
Fujitsu Laboratories will continue development of technologies to
further speed up the blockchain while adapting them to the latest
version of Hyperledger Fabric, and will carry out trials with a
view to commercial applications of this technology, with plans to
commercialize it through Fujitsu Limited during fiscal 2017.
(1) Hyperledger Fabric v0.6.1
Stable version of the Hyperledger Fabric framework as of July 5,
2017.
(2) Consortium-type
Blockchains can largely be divided into three types--public,
consortium, and private--of which the consortium-type is regarded
as being the strongest contender for applications such as in
financial institutions.
About Fujitsu Laboratories
Founded in 1968 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu Limited,
Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. is one of the premier research centers in
the world. With a global network of laboratories in Japan, China,
the United States and Europe, the organization conducts a wide
range of basic and applied research in the areas of Next-generation
Services, Computer Servers, Networks, Electronic Devices and
Advanced Materials. For more information, please see:
http://www.fujitsu.com/jp/group/labs/en/.
About Fujitsu Ltd
Fujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication
technology (ICT) company, offering a full range of technology
products, solutions, and services. Approximately 155,000 Fujitsu
people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our
experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with
our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated
revenues of 4.5 trillion yen (US$40 billion) for the fiscal year
ended March 31, 2017. For more information, please see
http://www.fujitsu.com.
* Please see this press release, with images, at:
http://www.fujitsu.com/global/about/resources/news/press-releases/
Source: Fujitsu Ltd
Contact:
Fujitsu Laboratories
Software Laboratory
E-mail: bc-press2017@ml.labs.fujitsu.com
Fujitsu Limited
Public and Investor Relations
Tel: +81-3-6252-2176
URL: www.fujitsu.com/global/news/contacts/
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