Performance analysis of the Raft consensus algorithm on Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum on cloud

Abstract

The use of private or consortium blockchains in organizations’ applications is growing. A relevant aspect of blockchains is the choice of consensus mechanism. This decision delimits which blockchain solutions are suitable for the private scenario. Once the consensus mechanism is chosen, more than one blockchain may be enabled. However, this decision making is not trivial and requires detailed experimental indicators about algorithms and blockchains performance. In this context, we provide a comprehensive performance analysis of the Raft consensus mechanism based on its implementation in Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum blockchain solutions. We performed our experiments on an OpenStack private cloud using each blockchain developer’s default settings for virtual machines. Our findings show how the implementation of each solution can impact the application’s performance under certain conditions.