Deploy Hyperledger on AWS, the Best Way

Cloud deployment of applications is now a common task, such that, it almost transformed into regular operation in the enterprise ecosystem. AWS is among major cloud service providers and along with blockchain technology becoming the latest buzz, blockchain application deployment on cloud became a most sought-after technique. Hyperledger, backed by Linux, IBM and other such tech giants, offers several standard enterprise-grade decentralized ledger platform. To Deploy Hyperledger on AWS, the latter provide official documentation.

However, many developers find the information fuzzy and inadequate. AWS, in fact, has no special environment developed to fit Hyperledger specifically. Developers believe, treating Hyperledger like other general web apps while deploying on AWS makes things a lot more uncomplicated. Amazon’s AWS Blockchain Template for Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric provide the module to deploy the applications based on these platforms. Following the general deployment model to deploy Hyperledger on AWS is the most effective way.

AWS Blockchain Template for Hyperledger Fabric

Enabling Amazon EC2 instance, AWS created the template to launch private Hyperledger Fabric. It also allows deploying additional components of Hyperledger. Amazon claims using managed and certified CloudFormation templates enterprises can focus on the use case and operation of the application rather than spending time and energy in manual setup. Hyperledger on Amazon is deployed directly as an EC2 Instance running Docker. As the network is created on the Amazon Public Cloud (VPC) of the enterprises, it allows using cloud subnets and network Access Control Lists. Creating the EC2 Instance is the primary method of deploying Hyperledger on AWS.

Deploy Hyperledger on AWS

AWS Blockchain Template supports the deployment of Hyperledger Fabric that enables developing blockchain applications. It also enables to control the permission and access rights on the blockchain application. Hyperledger Fabric uses Chaincode as its basic operation. It is the smart contract mechanism, which is written in Go language. A private network is created in Hyperledger is created by limiting the number of peers that can participate in the network.

To deploy Hyperledger on AWS a docker-local container is used. Hyperledger Fabric is deployed on a single EC2 instance. AWS Blockchain Template creates this instance with Docker, launching the network using the container on that instance. Along with the network, Hyperledger Explorer is also launched to access the data on the blockchain. Hyperledger Explorer is stored on a PostgreSQL server container. Amazon provides detailed information on the process in its official documentation.

A Simple Plan

AWS makes deploying Hyperledger Fabric easy. An enterprise first needs to evaluate the technical requirement of the blockchain network to fit into their operations and processes. The system is developed as per the requirement of number of peers, gateways and other such parameters. This will define the number of EC2 Instances required to support the system. The basic network in the EC2 container has one order server and three organizations with a single peer service. Enterprises will need several such Instances as per the number of peers and order servers.

Points to Remember

There are certain points to remember to deploy Hyperledger Fabric on AWS. Here are the most important ones:

• The user or group in the AWS Blockchain Template should have the permission to work on all services.

• As Amazon has several regional servers, the key to the EC2 Instance should be for the same location as the instance. In AWS, the blockchain is made 100% available by creating access nodes for the same Instance from multiple locations.

• It is necessary to obtain the permission to use Amazon S3 and Amazon ECR, which are the Cloud Space (or Simple Storage Service) and Container Registry.

Is IBM a Better Option for Hyperledger

Many developers believe IBM Cloud is a better option compared to AWS when it comes to Hyperledger Deployment. IBM is an official partner supporting Hyperledger with a massive contribution towards its development. In fact, IBM Blockchain Platform is based on Hyperledger Fabric offering the easiest way to develop applications. IBM also offers a number of options to deploy Hyperledger Fabric. Still, Amazon has advantages in terms of expandability and usage of Cloud services.

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