In Distributed Database Management System, data is not stored centrally on a server, rather it is distributed over few servers, PCs or cloud. There are many examples, Hadoop, No SQL, Peer Network Node data stores, Distributed SQL, etc. These are architectures widely used by likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon. After launch of Bitcoin, distributed ledger technology came in light, though it was discussed in some research papers, during 1990s. People may say DLT is an extension of DDBMS.
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is transactional type of DDBMS. DLT deploys time stamping, which is used for a while, in many DBMSs. Time stamp based concurrency/ ordering control algorithm ensures time linked sequencing of transactions. It endorses immutability of transactions, which is already used by Google HDFS, etc. It incorporates consensus mechanism for validation of transactions in the network, the same is used outside DLT space in Raft & Paxos. However, DLT has a leverage of Cryptography over DDBMS. Its true decentralized read/write network, that doesn’t have parallels. Along with that ability of DLT to secure transactions, using host of protocols, sets it apart from all the conventional ones. Smart Contract are integral part of DLT, they add capabilities of building business logic and business processes, which can facilitate automation of transactions, based on predefined conditions. These technologies, encapsulated in DLT, forge trust among not so trusted users.
Distributed Ledger Technology
There are two users in DLT – Transactional users & miners/ blockchain operator/ blockchain generators, these users operate DLT through processes in following sequence – Network discovery, Transaction creation (including asset creation & developing smart contracts, Block generation & submission (Mining and consensus process) and Block validation.
Broadly DLT data model constitutes 3 components – transaction, block and block header. Together they capture the state of ledger. Block and Block Header are standard and essential to every block-chain platform. Block contains transactions. The block’s metadata is kept in the Block Header, consisting of hash, previous hash, markel tree, nonce.
Language of transaction consists of methodology for registering ledger services, testing deployed ledgers, reference implementation for storing on-chain configuration settings, Handling on-chain permissions for users and identity management, as a whole.
Every other Block-chain DLT uses different protocol for consensus management e.g. Proof of work (PoW), Proof of elapsed time (PoET), Proof of Stake (PoS). The selection is based on business applications.
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