A Coordinator-Free Cross-Shard Transaction Execution for Sharded Permissioned Blockchains

Que Qifeng; Chen Zhihao; Zhang Zhao; Yang Yanqin; Zhou Aoying

doi:10.7544/issn1000-1239.202330294

Journal of Computer Research and Development > 2023 > 60(11): 2469-2488. > DOI: 10.7544/issn1000-1239.202330294 CSTR: 32373.14.issn1000-1239.202330294

Que Qifeng, Chen Zhihao, Zhang Zhao, Yang Yanqin, Zhou Aoying. A Coordinator-Free Cross-Shard Transaction Execution for Sharded Permissioned Blockchains[J]. Journal of Computer Research and Development, 2023, 60(11): 2469-2488. DOI: 10.7544/issn1000-1239.202330294

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A Coordinator-Free Cross-Shard Transaction Execution for Sharded Permissioned Blockchains

Que Qifeng^{1, 2,},
Chen Zhihao^{1, 2},
Zhang Zhao^{1, 2},
Yang Yanqin^{1, 3, ,},
Zhou Aoying^{1, 2}

1.
Engineering Research Center of Blockchain Data Management (East China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Shanghai 200062
2.
School of Data Science and Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062
3.
Software Engineering Institute, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062

Funds: This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFB2700100), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61972152) and the Program of Shanghai Academic/Technology Research Leader（23XD1401100).

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Author Bio:
Que Qifeng: born in 1998. Master candidate. His main research interest includes execution of smart contracts in blockchain

Chen Zhihao: born in 1996. PhD candidate. His main research interest includes performance and scalability optimization of blockchain systems

Zhang Zhao: born in 1977. PhD, professor, PhD supervisor. Member of CCF. Her main research interests include distributed database and blockchain data management

Yang Yanqin: born in 1977. PhD, associate professor. Member of CCF. Her main research interests include compile optimization, embedded systems, and blockchain technology

Zhou Aoying: born in 1965. PhD, professor, PhD supervisor. Member of CCF. His main research interests include database systems and blockchain data management
Received Date: April 05, 2023
Revised Date: July 05, 2023
Available Online: September 26, 2023

Graphical Abstract

Abstract

Abstract

Recently, as blockchain technology continues to gain traction in various industries, there is an increasing need to improve the performance of permissioned blockchains in order to accommodate a wide range of applications. Sharding techniques have been proposed to optimize blockchain performance by dividing the network into committees, allowing for parallel transaction execution within each committee. However, the existence of expensive cross-shard transactions hinders the progress of sharded blockchain. Some work attempts to use the two-phase commit(2PC) protocol to process cross-shard transactions. However, these approaches suffer from substantial limitations in terms of performance and scalability, failing to meet the demands of modern industries for large-scale systems. Furthermore, these transactions demonstrate inadequate performance under high conflict scenarios, imposing additional constraints on the overall system performance. In this paper, we propose an approach for executing cross-shard transactions in sharded permissioned blockchains. The approach introduces determinism to the execution of cross-shard transactions, eliminating the need for additional coordination overhead while improving the efficiency of the system. To further improve system throughput, we utilize a transaction reordering mechanism to optimize the execution under conflicts. Experimental results show that our approach offers 1.6 times to 2.5 times higher throughput compared with the 2PC method, and 2.9 times to 25 times higher throughput compared with the non-optimized system in conflict scenarios.
- permissioned blockchains,
- sharding technology,
- cross-shard transaction,
- coordinator-free,
- conflict-resilient

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References (20)

References

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