Contribute in GitHub:
Open doc issue|Edit online
copyright: years: 2024 lastupdated: "2024-06-27"
keywords: IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric, system requirements, Kubernetes, behind a firewall, azure, multicloud
subcollection: hlf-support
About IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric
The IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric enables a consortium of organizations to easily build and join a blockchain network on-prem, or on any private, public, or hybrid multicloud that uses Kubernetes. Customers can deploy their nodes on the cloud platform of their choice and connect to any IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric network, whether it is deployed on your own Kubernetes cluster or with the IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric for IBM Cloud. IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric leverages Hyperledger Fabric v2.2.15 or v2.5.9 and supports deployment on multiple Kubernetes distributions.
IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric is based on Hyperledger Fabric v2.2.15 or v2.5.9 and is the IBM commercial distribution of Hyperledger Fabric. A key benefit of the platform is that IBM tests the open source code for security vulnerabilities daily and provides 24x7x365 support with SLAs appropriate for production environments.
What IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric offers
The IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric provides a flexible management platform that runs on Kubernetes. The offering includes an award-winning management console that allows you to easily deploy blockchain components, build a multicloud blockchain network, and perform network management and maintenance.
This offering includes one deployment option:
Full platform
Includes the operator, management console, peer, CA, ordering node, and smart contract container images. The IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric management console can be used to create all of the fundamental components of a Hyperledger Fabric network: a Certificate Authority (CA), an ordering service, and peers, on your local cluster. You can also use your console to operate a distributed multicloud network by importing nodes that were deployed by using other consoles. For more information about the building blocks of Hyperledger Fabric networks, see the blockchain component overview.
The IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric includes the following key features:
BUILD ---- Integrated developer experience
- Deploy easily. Use Ansible Playbooks or the Red Hat Marketplace to deploy networks quicker than ever before.
- Easily code your smart contracts in Node.js, Golang, Java, or JavaScript. Use the IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric Developer Tools to easily develop smart contracts locally. Leverage SDK integration with the console, and learn from our rich tutorials and samples.
- Simplified DevOps allows you to move from development to test to production in a single environment by scaling up your Kubernetes resources to add more components.
- Up-to-date Fabric key features. Choose which version of Hyperledger Fabric you want to use when deploying peers or ordering nodes. Leverage the latest features of Hyperledger Fabric 2.2.15 or v2.5.9:
- Smart contract lifecycle
- Raft ordering service
- Private data collections that provide increased data privacy by ensuring that ledger data is shared to only authorized peers via the gossip protocol.
- Fabric Node OUs
- Service discovery, allowing you to dynamically discover and update how your application interacts with your network.
- Channel access control lists that allow you additional control of the governance of your channels and smart contracts.
OPERATE --- Total control of your deployments
- Host or join a network. Deploy peers that are hosted in your cluster to multiple channels on multiple clouds, or invite other organizations to join your consortium or channels while the organizations manage their nodes independently across infrastructures.
- Maintain complete control of your identities. Store and manage the keys that are used to administer your nodes. Optionally, use a Hardware Security Module (HSM) to generate and store the private key of your nodes.
- Run Anywhere. Thanks to the unified codebase of the Fabric Operations Console, it is possible to run your components on any Kubernetes v1.27 - v1.29 container platform on x86_64 or s390x.
- Unified operation. The Fabric Operations Console allows you to deploy and manage all of your organizations and nodes in one console. You can also add or remove members from a blockchain consortium, create and join channels, and deploy smart contracts from your console.
- Dynamic signature collection that allows better control over collaborative governance over channel configurations.
- Elimination of Docker-in-Docker for smart contracts allows smart contract pods to be run more securely, without peers needing privileged access.
- Manage access of the users who can administer or monitor your nodes.
- Interact directly with your pods using your Kubernetes service.
- Direct access to the logs of your nodes from your Kubernetes service. Use any supported third-party service to extract and analyze your logs.
- Kubernetes service integration. Leverage services such as IBM Log Analysis for logging and Prometheus and IBM Cloud Monitoring for monitoring.
GROW --- Scalability and flexibility
- Choose your compute. You have the flexibility to decide the amount of CPU, memory, and storage you want to provision in your Kubernetes cluster. For more information, see Allocating resources.
- Scale up and down the resources in your Kubernetes cluster, paying for only what you need. For more information, see Pricing.
- Disaster recovery and multi-region high availability (HA). This option duplicates your Kubernetes deployment across regions, enabling high availability (HA) of your components and disaster recovery (DR).
- Connect to other Fabric networks: Join IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric peers to any network running Hyperledger Fabric components. Similarly, you can invite Fabric peers to join channels hosted on an ordering service deployed on the IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric. Note that you will need to use Hyperledger Fabric APIs or the CLI.
Have questions and want to speak to an IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric expert? Schedule a consult now to learn more about how blockchain can transform your business.
Supported Environments and Components
IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric, for Fabric 2.2.15 or v2.5.9, covers the following Kubernetes environments and Fabric components:
Kubernetes Support
IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric supports Fabric 2.2.15 or v2.5.9. It can be deployed with the Kubernetes distributions on the following platforms:
| Kubernetes distribution | Version | Hardware | Tested configuration |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenShift Container Platform | 4.12, 4.13, 4.14, 4.15 | x86_64 | 4.12, 4.13, 4.14, 4.15 |
| OpenShift Container Platform on IBM Cloud | 4.12, 4.13, 4.14, 4.15 | x86_64 | 4.12, 4.13, 4.14, 4.15 |
| OpenShift Container Platform on LinuxONE | 4.12, 4.13, 4.14, 4.15 | s390x | 4.12, 4.13, 4.14, 4.15 |
| Kubernetes | v1.27 - v1.29 | x86_64 | v1.27 - v1.29 |
If you are running on Azure Kubernetes Service, Amazon Web Services, Rancher, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service, or Google Kubernetes Engine, then you need to set up the NGINX Ingress controller and it needs to be running in SSL passthrough mode. For more information, see Considerations when using Kubernetes distributions.
Fabric Component Support
The following support levels are provided for Hyperledger Fabric v2.2.15, v2.5.9, and Fabric CA v1.5.12.
Using IBM Certified Fabric Images, Kubernetes Operator, and Certified Fabric Operations Console are required for support and provide Hyperledger Fabric clients with a verified production setup, simplified management and support, and verified security patches.
| Fabric Component | Support Level |
|---|---|
| IBM Certified Fabric images deployed using Kubernetes Operator and managed via the Certified Fabric Operations Console image. | All Certified Fabric images include IBM fix support for supported Hyperledger Fabric versions. |
| Supported Environments | Recent Kubernetes and OpenShift versions on IBM Cloud, third-party Cloud or local installations. |
| Hyperledger Fabric without IBM Certified Images, Kubernetes Operator or Certified Fabric Operations Console image. | Not included in the support offering - community support only |
| Hyperledger Fabric Labs Support | Fabric Operations Console via Certified Image and deployed by Kubernetes Operator is supported. |
| Hyperledger Fabric Open Source Projects - IBM Blockchain GitHub | Not included in the support offering - community support only. |
| Hyperledger Fabric SDK and CLI | Basic connectivity diagnostics is supported. Code support and SDK API usage and tuning are not included in the support offering - community support only. |
| Hyperledger Fabric Chaincode | Basic chaincode diagnostics is supported. Code support and tuning are not included in the support offering - community support only. |
| Deployment Architecture and Design. | Basic deployment and management of highly available peer, orderer, and Certificate Authority nodes via the Console are supported. Detailed Deployment Architecture and Design are not included in the support offering - see deployment options for more information. |
| Solution Architecture and Design | Deploying and managing smart contracts via the Console are supported. Solution Architecture and Design are not included in the support offering. |
| Performance Tuning | Resource allocation via the Console is supported. Detailed performance analysis and tuning of the environment or application code are not included - see the documentation on creating highly available applications and using indexes with CouchDB. |
| Certificate Renewal | Automatic and Manual Certificate renewal via the Certified Console image is supported. Fixing environments in which identities were lost or allowed to expire is not included in the support offering. The user of the support offering is responsible for keeping track of identities and performing manual certificate renewal. Using IBM Secrets Manager is recommended for keeping track of identities and certificates. |
License and pricing
Your IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric license includes both the full platform and the IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric images.
The license does not include a Kubernetes distribution. You must procure that separately.
After you purchase a license, you can access your My IBM dashboard to deploy the release. When you choose this option, you are responsible for provisioning your own Kubernetes cluster.
For more information, see Pricing.
Considerations and limitations
- This offering does not include Red Hat OpenShift.
- You are responsible for the management of health monitoring, logging, and resource usage of your blockchain components.
- Users of this offering must manage their own security and infrastructure. The IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric does not provision or provide those services.
- Persistent storage is required. Host-local storage volumes are not supported.
- You must have the cluster admin role in order to deploy the product.
- The console creates nodes based on the Hyperledger Fabric v2.x.x node images.
- You can deploy only one Fabric Operations Console per Kubernetes namespace or OpenShift project. If you plan to create multiple blockchain networks, for example to create different environments for development, staging, and production, you should create a unique project or namespace for each environment.
- IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric is not supported on OpenShift Online.
Installing IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric
IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric uses a Kubernetes Operator to install the Fabric Operations Console on your cluster and manage the deployment of your nodes. When you are ready to get started, see Deploy IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric on the OpenShift Container Platform. If you are deploying the platform on other Kubernetes distributions, see Deploy IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric on Kubernetes.
It is also possible to deploy the IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric behind a firewall, without having access to the public internet. For more information, see Deploying IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric on the OpenShift Container Platform behind a firewall. Otherwise, for other Kubernetes distributions see Deploying IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric on Kubernetes behind a firewall.
Looking for a way to script the deployment of the service? Check out the Ansible playbooks, a powerful tool for scripting the deployment of components in your blockchain network.
Security Considerations
Because these components are deployed on your own infrastructure, you are responsible for managing their security. This includes important areas of security, such as Identity and Access Management, key management, and data encryption. Review the following topic on Security for the list of considerations.
Getting support
For more information about how to get support on IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric, in addition to free blockchain developer resources and support forums that you can use to troubleshoot problems, see Getting support.
Next steps
When you are ready to learn how to deploy an instance of the IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric to your Kubernetes cluster see Getting started with IBM Support for Hyperledger Fabric.