Automated Tool for Building Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain Networks Using Ansible

Abstract

Building a blockchain network is time-consuming and challenging. It requires extensive information technology (IT) knowledge and relevant skills. To simplify this task, global IT companies provide cloud-based blockchain services. In this paper, we proposed a cloud-based construction and management tool called smart blockchain network constructor (SBC) that could allow blockchain developers, operators and enterprises to easily deploy blockchain networks within their infrastructure and save time and cost. SBC employs Hyperledger Fabric, a well-known private blockchain platform. Ansible is an open-source IT automation engine that could support network-wide deployment. Instead of complex and repetitive text commands, SBC provides a user-friendly web interface that allows users to setup, deploy, and interact seamlessly with blockchain networks. To verify its usefulness and convenience, a blockchain network that could conduct food safety checks and an electronic voting decentralized app were built and tested with SBC. The process of blockchain network construction, which involves writing more than ten settings files and executing numerous command lines, can be replaced with simple input and click operations from a graphical user interface. A Hyperledger Fabric channel was used to enable independent and reliable tasks in both food safety and smart election tasks. As a result, an automated system was created to simulate the necessary manual work in constructing blockchain networks. We observed that the proposed automated system dramatically reduced the time consumption of blockchain network construction compared to manual construction. We strongly believe that this system will be highly beneficial to both blockchain operators and developers for their applications built on blockchain technology.