About IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3
Running a different version of IBM Blockchain Platform? Switch to version 2.1.3, 2.5, 2.5.1, 2.5.2, 2.5.3.
Important: You are not looking at the latest product documentation. It is strongly suggested that you upgrade to the latest version of the product as soon as possible. Upgrading ensures that you are using the latest product features and fixes, such as improved product stability, automated certificate renewal, and current security patches. Security patches are not applied to older versions of the product that are no longer supported. The supported environments described in documentation for earlier releases, such as a previously supported Kubernetes version, are not updated and may no longer be accurate—do not rely upon support for any versions listed in earlier releases of the product.
IBM® Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 enables a consortium of organizations to easily build and join a blockchain network on-premises, 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 Blockchain Platform network, whether it is deployed on your own Kubernetes cluster or with the IBM Blockchain Platform for IBM Cloud. The IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 leverages Hyperledger Fabric v1.4.6 and supports deployment on multiple Kubernetes distributions.
What IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 offers
The IBM Blockchain Platform 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 two deployment options:
Full platform
Includes the operator, management console, peer, CA, orderer, and smart contract container images. The IBM Blockchain Platform 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.
IBM Blockchain images
For experienced Hyperledger Fabric customers, a purchase of IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 includes an entitlement to the peer, CA, orderer, and smart contract container images that are signed and supported by IBM. These images are based on the open source Hyperledger Fabric code base and contain a number of enhancements for stability and serviceability. The images are bundled with support from IBM. The IBM Blockchain Platform management console and operator are not among the images that are included in this entitlement. For more information, see IBM Blockchain images for Hyperledger Fabric.
The IBM Blockchain Platform includes the following key features:
BUILD ---- Integrated developer experience
- Easily code your smart contracts in Node.js, Golang, Java, or JavaScript, write client applications using the new IBM Blockchain VS Code extension, 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. Leverage the latest features of Hyperledger Fabric v1.4.6:
- 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 an Hardware Security Module (HSM) to generate and store the private key of your nodes.
- Run Anywhere. Thanks to the unified codebase of the IBM Blockchain Platform console, it is possible to run your components on any Kubernetes v1.14 - v1.16 container platform on x86_64 or s390x.
- Unified operation. The IBM Blockchain Platform 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 install and instantiate smart contracts from your console.
- Dynamic signature collection that allows better control over collaborative governance over channel configurations.
- 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 Blockchain Platform 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 Blockchain Platform. Note that you will need to use Hyperledger Fabric APIs or the CLI.
Check out this blog on taking the next step towards multicloud support and distributed consensus.
Supported Platforms
The IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 can be deployed with the Kubernetes distributions on the following Platforms:
| Kubernetes distribution | Version | Hardware | Tested configuration |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenShift Container Platform | 3.11 | x86_64 | |
| OpenShift Container Platform | 4.1 | x86_64 | |
| OpenShift Container Platform | 4.3 | x86_64 |  |
| OpenShift Container Platform on IBM Cloud | 3.11, 4.3 | x86_64 | |
| OpenShift Container Platform on LinuxONE | 4.2 | s390x | |
| OpenShift Container Platform on LinuxONE | 4.3 | s390x | |
| Kubernetes * | v1.14 - v1.17 | x86_64 | |
* If you want to use IBM Kubernetes Service, we recommend that you check out the IBM Blockchain Platform for IBM Cloud offering unless you specifically require this offering. See Is IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 suitable for you.
If you are running on Azure Kubernetes Service, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service, or IBM Kubernetes Service, 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.
License and pricing
Your IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 entitlement includes both the full platform and the IBM Blockchain images.
The entitlement does not include a Kubernetes distribution. You must procure that separately. And if you plan to use IBM Cloud Private, you need to purchase a separate entitlement.
After you purchase an entitlement, you can access your My IBM dashboard to obtain your entitlement key for the offering. This key is required 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 an entitlement to 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 Blockchain Platform 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 v1.4.6 node images.
- You can deploy only one IBM Blockchain Platform console per Kubernetes namespace. 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.
- You cannot upgrade a deployed network from IBM Blockchain Platform for Multicloud to IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.x.
- IBM Blockchain Platform is not supported on OpenShift Online.
- There is no free trial at this time. Customers who are interested in exploring the functionality should try the offering on IBM Cloud.
- You cannot access the IBM Blockchain Platform console with the Chrome browser on Mac OS Catalina when the IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.0 or v2.1.1 is deployed with the default configuration that uses self-signed certificates. See Known issues for a list of workarounds.
Installing IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3
The IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 uses a Kubernetes Operator to install the IBM Blockchain Platform console on your cluster and manage the deployment of your nodes. When you purchase the IBM Blockchain Platform license from Passport Advantage Online, you receive a token that provides access to IBM Entitlement registry. You can use your token with the commands and files that are provided in the installation guide to automatically download the Docker images and start the operator and console on your cluster. When you are ready to get started, see Deploying IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 on the OpenShift Container Platform. If you are deploying the platform on other Kubernetes distributions, see Deploying IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 on Kubernetes.
It is also possible to deploy the IBM Blockchain Platform behind a firewall, without having access to the public internet. For more information, see Deploying IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 on the OpenShift Container Platform behind a firewall. Otherwise, for other Kubernetes distributions see Deploying IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 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 Blockchain Platform, 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 Blockchain Platform to your Kubernetes cluster see Getting started with IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3.