Blockchain and HyperLedger Fabric difference

Question

While I am trying to understand the blockchain technology, I came across HyperLedger Fabric. As per the documentation, it is an implementation of blockchain technology.

What does that mean? Is block chain just a concept and HyperLedger Fabric, an implementation of that concept?

UPDATED: Where does the hyperledger fabric store the transactions? I understand that its a p2p architecture and every peer has a copy of the transactions, but usually these transactions is a growing set. Does every peer has a copy of growing transactions? I am not clear on this yet. Does the community recommend any database?

Answer 1

Considering the fact that you are new to the world of blockchains, I would like to familiarize you with the concept of blockchain before answering this question.

As per definition, blockchain is nothing but a distributed and decentralized digital ledger which records transactions across a global network of computers where the information is highly secure. As the name suggests, blockchain is a linear chain of blocks that holds information of transactions taking place over the web. Every block contains data in the form of coding that is organized in a chronological manner.

This concept is leveraged by several projects. You might be familiar with some of them. These include bitcoin, ethereum, and ripple amongst others.

Hyperledger is one such project that leverages the blockchain technology for enabling open industrial blockchain development. With industrial developments in the limelight, it can be assumed that several companies use Hyperledger to develop blockchain systems as per their requirements. As a matter of fact, all companies leverage Hyperledger but covertly manage and maintain their own versions. 

Hyperledger Fabric is the Hyperledger specification which is maintained and managed by IBM.

Originally contributed by Intel, Hyperledger Fabric is a permissioned blockchain infrastructure that provides a modular architecture with a delineation of roles between nodes, execution of Smart Contracts also known as chain code, configurable consensus, and membership services. Hyperledger Fabric is aimed at integration projects in which a Distributed Ledger Technology is required, offering no user-facing services other than SDK for Node.js, Java, and Go. It supports chaincode in JavaScript and Go and is, therefore, more flexible than its competitors who support only one closed Smart Contract Language.

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