Understanding Enterprise Blockchain Consensus
Joseph H. Holbrook · 2020
This chapter provides IT administrator a technical presales perspective on why the blockchain consensus methods vary and how this could play into an enterprise's decision to implement a specific blockchain ledger platform. It focuses on the consensus methods used in the enterprise blockchains Hyperledger Fabric, R3 Corda, Quorum, and enterprise Ethereum. When making a design decision around enterprise blockchains and the appropriate consensus methods that can be used with a particular blockchain, it is critical to understand the main comparison points between permissioned-based consensus and proof-of-work consensus. The chapter addresses the following consensus methods: proof of work, proof of stake, proof of elapsed time, delegated proof of stake, delegated Byzantine fault tolerance, practical Byzantine fault tolerance, Istanbul Byzantine fault tolerance, and Raft-based directed acyclic graphs. The consensus methods vary widely on how consensus is reached, how a stake is arrived at, the terminology that is used, and the blockchain for which it was developed.