What's new

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October 30, 2020

IBM® Blockchain Platform 2.5.1 is now available.

IBM Blockchain Platform 2.5.1 now supports the Fabric v2.x smart contract lifecycle that allows for decentralized governance of smart contract definitions on a channel. The platform has been updated to support Kubernetes v1.16-v1.18 and OpenShift container Platform 4.5.

Support for Fabric v2.x lifecycle

The series of processes around installing, managing, and using smart contracts, collectively known as the "lifecycle" of the smart contract, has been updated. This new lifecycle allows organizations to collaborate in the channel-level decision making process regarding smart contracts, eliminate the need for smart contract fingerprint matches, and allow smart contracts to be written with only the code relevant to an organization's business role.

The IBM Developer tooling has been updated to support generation of Fabric v2.x smart contract packages as well as testing smart contracts by using the new lifecycle process. Learn more about how to deploy a smart contract using Fabric v2.x and how to write powerful smart contracts that leverage the new governance.

New process for enabling Hardware Security Module (HSM) support

A new process for configuring an HSM to work with your blockchain nodes is available and offers faster performance over the use of the existing HSM PKCS #11 proxy which is now deprecated. Current customers who are using the PKCS #11 proxy should check out the new process in the Advanced deployment options.

Ability to upgrade existing nodes and channel application capability to Fabric v2.x

You continue to have the option to select the Fabric v1.4 or v2.x image when creating your CAs, peers, and ordering nodes. However, you now have the ability to upgrade your existing nodes that are running Fabric v1.4.x to the Fabric v2.x image. If you have peers using the Fabric v1.4.x image, you must upgrade your nodes and update your channel capabilities to take advantage of the new smart contract lifecycle.

For information about upgrading nodes, check out Upgrading to a new version of Fabric. For information about updating the capabilities of your channels, check out Capabilities.

Enhancements to the certificate renewal process

Because all actions on a blockchain network depend on the existence of valid and verifiable certificates, renewing certificate is vital to avoiding network outages. To streamline the certificate renewal process, the console now allows you to renew your CA TLS certificate, and peer and ordering node enrollment and TLS certificates. While it is preferable to renew certificates before they expire, it is possible to restore components whose certificates have already expired in many cases. Learn more about the new options in Certificate management.

If you have an existing IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.x or 2.5.0 deployment and are interested in upgrading to IBM Blockchain Platform 2.5.1, see the following topics:

See the Release notes for more details on the new features that are included in this release.

June 18, 2020

IBM® Blockchain Platform 2.5 is now available.

IBM Blockchain Platform 2.5 provides tighter integration with Red Hat solutions, including additional deployment options on Red Hat OpenShift 4.3 and support for Ansible Playbooks and Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces. To learn more about the new features see the ]IBM Blockchain Platform 2.5 documentation.

If you have an existing IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.x deployment and are interested in upgrading to IBM Blockchain Platform 2.5, see the following topics in the IBM Blockchain Platform 2.5 documentation:

This update also helps organizations accelerate deployment through support of Ansible, an open source tool that automates provisioning, configuration management, and application deployment. Available in both IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 and 2.5, Ansible Content Collections are packages of modules, plug-ins, and other Ansible content that automate these processes. The platform has published a set of Ansible Content Collections to help organizations deploy blockchain components and networks with greater speed. See Getting started with Ansible playbooks on the IBM Blockchain Platform to learn more.

March 24, 2020

IBM® Blockchain Platform v2.1.3 is now available.

The following enhancements are included in this latest release:

If you have an existing IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.0, v2.1.1, or v2.1.2 deployment and are interested in upgrading to IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.3, see the following topics:

See the Release notes for more details on the new features that are included in this release.

We've streamlined the documentation. If you are an existing customer, you might notice that a new Tutorials section was added in the table of contents under Learn. We've aggregated all the tutorials in a single location under the Tutorials heading to make them easier to find.

December 17, 2019

IBM® Blockchain Platform v2.1.2 can now be deployed on the OpenShift Container Platform 4.1 and 4.2. You can find a table of deployment options by going to Supported platforms. IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.2 also provides improvements to the IBM Blockchain Platform console. See the Release notes for a full list of new features that are included with this release.

If you have an existing IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.0 or v2.1.1 deployment and are interested in upgrading to IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.2, see the following topics:

November 08, 2019

IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.1 now provides users the ability to deploy the blockchain components on any Kubernetes v1.11 - v1.16 container platform on x86_64 hardware. Your entitlement includes the peer, CA, ordering node, and smart contract container images as well as the award-winning flexible management console for deploying and managing your blockchain network. Use the console or IBM Blockchain Platform APIs to build a consortium of organizations to easily transact on the same network, regardless of each client's cloud preference. Clients can build, operate, and grow their blockchain networks with an offering that can be used from development to production.

If you are an experienced Hyperledger Fabric customer and prefer to deploy and manage the containers yourself, you can download and use the container images without the management console. For more information, see Using the IBM Blockchain images.

If you are an existing IBM Blockchain Platform 2.1.0 customer, there is no upgrade needed to the IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.1.

September 24, 2019

IBM Blockchain Platform utilizes Hyperledger Fabric v1.4.3 and provides a new flexible management platform on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 3.11 an open source platform that allows developers to quickly develop, build, deploy, and manage Linux containerized services and applications in a cloud environment. IBM Blockchain Platform v2.1.0 is now available to be installed on any x86_64 architecture where Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 3.11 runs and includes an award winning console UI for creating and managing your blockchain network.