Investigating Suitable Consensus Protocols for Secured Blockchain Based System

In an attempt to address the challenge of selecting the most optimal ordering service for achieving high throughput and low latency in permissioned Hyperledger Fabric production networks, this evaluates the characteristics and suitability of the three primary consensus protocols: Kafka, Raft, and Solo. This evaluation examines their fault tolerance mechanisms, deployment models, architectural properties (decentralization, scalability), and intended use cases. The obtained results suggest that Solo, as a single-node protocol lacking fault tolerance and decentralization, is suitable only for development and testing environments and not for production. Kafka, relying on an external cluster and offering crash fault-tolerance, is reliable but is indicated to have scalability and flexibility limitations in larger networks. Raft, also providing crash fault-tolerance and operating internally within the network, demonstrates improved decentralization and scalability, positioning it as the preferred choice for many production deployments, although its performance can be variable depending on network size. The results highlight an ongoing debate regarding the best balance between throughput and latency among these protocols, indicating that each presents trade-off. Therefore, the analysis suggests that determining the most optimal protocol for a specific production environment requires further, tailored evaluation based on its unique requirements and scale.