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ARCHITECTURE.md

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🏗️ ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN SPECIFICATION

This document outlines the architectural modifications and components of the Post-Quantum Hyperledger Fabric Benchmark framework. The design prioritizes modularity and isolation to enable performance analysis of distinct cryptographic schemes.

🔌 Cryptographic Modularity: PQC Integration

This section details the architectural approach adopted for integrating Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) into Hyperledger Fabric, isolating the cryptographic implementation to enable reproducible performance comparison.

🛡️ CSP Abstraction Layer

Integration is achieved by leveraging Fabric's Cryptographic Service Provider (CSP) interface. The CSP acts as an abstraction layer for signature generation and verification.

  • Key Principle: The core Fabric consensus protocols interact with the CSP interface; thus, the underlying cryptographic algorithm can be swapped (e.g., from ECDSA to Dilithium) without altering the critical consensus logic (Endorsement, Ordering).

🧪 Implementation Modes and Focus

The framework uses specialized CSP back-ends to implement the distinct test scenarios:

Mode Underlying Cryptography Signature Logic Benchmark Focus
PQC-only PQC (e.g., Dilithium) Exclusive use; replaces all classical signatures. Measures pure computational cost of quantum resistance.
Hybrid ECDSA + PQC Generates and verifies dual signatures per transaction. Measures transition overhead and cost of maximum security.

💾 Serialization Overhead (Impact)

The architecture must explicitly address the negative consequences of larger PQC signatures.

  • Mechanism: Increased PQC signature size significantly inflates the transaction envelope payload.
  • Impact: This results in Serialization Overhead, directly increasing average Block Size. This overhead is a critical metric, as it impacts networking propagation time and commitment latency, contributing significantly to overall throughput degradation.

🌐 Component Modification Summary

The integration primarily targets Fabric components responsible for cryptographic operations (signing and verification). The entire network is orchestrated using Docker Compose to ensure deterministic and reproducible test environments.

Fabric Component Primary PQC Function Impacted Process
Client SDK/Application Signature Generation Signs transaction proposals with PQC/Hybrid scheme.
Peer (Endorser) Verification & Signature Generation Verifies client signature; signs endorsement response.
Orderer Service Verification Verifies endorsement signatures before block packaging.
Peer (Committer) Final Verification Validates transaction signatures against endorsement policy before commit.

📈 Transaction Flow Implications

The architectural adjustments shift the primary computational bottleneck from standard networking to cryptographic processing. Key latency points in the PQC-enabled transaction flow are:

  1. Endorsement: High overhead due to both PQC Signature Verification (client proposal) and PQC Signature Generation (endorsement response).
  2. Commitment: High overhead resulting from the final block-wise PQC Signature Verification step against the required policy, directly impacting the final commit time.