Hyperledger and ConsenSys Quorum are joining forces to produce a series of webcasts to share best practices for how Hyperledger and Ethereum can work together. Hyperledger is an open source community focused on developing a suite of stable frameworks, tools and libraries for enterprise-grade blockchain deployments. The Linux Foundation hosts the projects and counts ConsenSys as one of its premier members. In 2019, ConsenSys’ protocol engineering team submitted its Ethereum client, now called Hyperledger Besu, which was the first public blockchain compatible submission to Hyperledger.
Since then, the distinct developer communities of Hyperledger and Ethereum have been building tools for these enterprise networks to further integrate. The point of these webcasts is to show how Ethereum can be leveraged by the Hyperledger Community. The series is designed to be highly interactive, with webcast attendees able to ask live questions of industry experts.
You can now register for the next Hyperledger In-Depth program, “How to use Ethereum for the Hyperledger Community, Technical AMA” on March 17th, 2021. This session will feature Hyperledger Cactus and Hyperledger Besu product demos.
Ethereum projects for the Hyperledger community
To better understand how Ethereum and Hyperleder are already working together, let’s take a look at Hyperledger’s Ethereum projects.
ConsenSys built Hyperledger Besu to bridge public Ethereum with private-permissioned networks. Hyperledger Besu as an implementation of Ethereum, or in simpler terms, a way for developers to run nodes on public Ethereum. ConsenSys’ engineers wrote it in Java, and also gave it an Apache II license, both preferred by enterprises around the globe. Unlike other public Ethereum clients, Hyperledger Besu can also run permissioned netowrks. Enterprise applications requiring private and high-performance transaction processing tend to prefer private networks.
“With Hyperledger Besu, users can run their network as tight and locked down or as free and open as they need to.”
Danno Ferrin, Lead Protocol Engineer at ConsenSys.
In June 2020, Hyperledger introduced Hyperledger Cactus, an open-source software development kit (SDK). Hyperledger Cactus is a plugin designed to help users connect distributed ledger technologies (DLT). Currently, this includes Hyperledger Besu, an Enterprise Ethereum client, Hyperledger Fabric, Corda, and ConsenSys Quorum.
Why would a developer want to connect between various blockchain implementations? This is because different business applications require specific types of networks and databases. Some need to be fast, some need to store a lot of data, and some need strong resilience properties. In the future, the goal of Hyperledger Cactus is to allow developers to continually add support for new blockchains to advance interoperability among disparate platforms.
Other Hyperledger projects that work with Ethereum include:
- Hyperledger Burrow: a Go-Language based Ethereum virtual machine. In simple terms, it is a permissible smart contract machine.
- Hyperledger Caliper: a tool to measure the performance of a blockchain implementation.
- EthCluster: a project in Hyperledger labs that provides an application gateway to Ethereum nodes.
- Hyperledger Avalon: a ledger independent implementation of the Trusted Compute Specifications published by the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.
Ethereum blockchain structure & the Hyperledger ecosystem
As blockchain technology continues to evolve for enterprises, the Ethereum and Hyperledger developer communities will continue to integrate–especially as more tools and projects are being developed to help bridge the tooling and unique specifications of various blockchains.
To learn more about how to leverage Ethereum and Hyperledger, register for the next Hyperledger In-Depth with ConsenSys webcast on March 17th to hear tips from the brilliant team of ConsenSys developers and their guests. Hyperledger members can access the sessions for free. Most importantly, listeners can bring their questions and receive answers from experts, in real-time, as part of the webcast.
During the first webcast, attendees were asked to answer questions about their use of Ethereum. In a live poll, a majority of Hyperledger Community members revealed that they are working with Ethereum everyday.
If you missed the series premiere, “Ethereum for the Hyperledger Community“ on January 27, 2021, you can watch the replay from the YouTube video below.
