Features of the Hyperledger Sawtooth

1. Separation Between the Application Level and the Core System

Sawtooth separates the application level from the core system level, making it easier to design and deploy programs. Application developers can design contract logic in any language of their choice with the help of Sawtooth. Sawtooth offers an abstraction for smart contracts. Applications include native business logic or virtual machines for smart contracts. Actually, a single blockchain may support both types of applications. These architectural options are made possible by Sawtooth on the transaction-processing layer, enabling the coexistence of several application types in the same blockchain network instance.

2. Sawtooth Permissioning Features in Private Networks

Sawtooth was created to address the problems associated with permissioned (private) networks. Sawtooth node clusters can be readily deployed with independent permissioning. No centralized service exists that might accidentally reveal transactional patterns or other private data. Roles and identities are among the parameters that define permissions stored on the blockchain so everyone using the network can access them.

3. Parallel Transaction Execution

Most blockchains demand serial transaction processing to ensure consistent ordering at each network node. A cutting-edge parallel scheduler in Sawtooth divides transactions into parallel flows. Sawtooth isolates the execution of transactions from one another while preserving contextual changes based on the locations in the state that a transaction accesses. Though it is feasible, transactions are carried out in parallel to avoid double-spending even when the same state is modified more than once. Over serial execution, parallel scheduling offers a significant potential speed boost.

4. Ethereum Contract Compatibility with Seth

The Sawtooth platform is now interoperable with Ethereum thanks to the Sawtooth-Ethereum integration project, Seth. The Seth transaction family enables the deployment of EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) smart contracts on Sawtooth.

5. Dynamic Consensus

Consensus in a blockchain refers to reaching an understanding among network participants. To reach a consensus with arbitrary flaws, algorithms typically vote among a predetermined group of participants. Both Nakamoto-style consensus and variations of the conventional Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) algorithms employ numerous rounds of explicit voting to reach consensus. The former elects a leader by some sort of lottery system. Sawtooth separates consensus from transaction semantics and abstracts the fundamental ideas behind the consensus. As consensus engines that communicate with the validator via the consensus API, the Sawtooth consensus interface permits plugging in various consensus implementations.

6. Sample Transaction Families

A transaction family, which functions as a transaction processor on a Sawtooth node, implements the data model and transaction language in a Sawtooth application. Sawtooth includes numerous fundamental transaction families as models, while the majority of application developers create bespoke transaction families to suit the particular needs of their ledgers:

• For testing deployed ledgers, developers use an integer key.
• On-chain configuration settings can be stored using the reference implementation provided by Settings.
• Identity-Manages on-chain permissioning for transactor and validator keys to simplify handling identities for collections of public key lists.
• Event System: Events can be created and broadcast using Hyperledger Sawtooth. This enables applications to: 
  • Get notified when blockchain-related events happen, like when a new block is committed or a fork occurs.
  • Subscribe to events specific to an application and specified by a transaction family.
  • Inform clients how a transaction was carried out without storing the details in the state.
  • Over a ZMQ Socket, subscriptions are submitted and maintained.

Hyperledger Sawtooth is a corporate blockchain platform that creates distributed ledger networks and applications. The design philosophy focuses on maintaining distributed ledgers and securing smart contracts, especially for enterprise applications. Sawtooth uses blockchain technology as a service (BaaS).
Sawtooth is very modular as well. This modularity allows companies and consortiums to decide on policy in their respective fields of competence. Applications can choose the transactional, permissioning, and consensus algorithms that best meet their unique business requirements because of Sawtooth’s fundamental design. The majority of blockchain-based systems in use today host and execute both their core and their apps on the same platform, which may have an impact on both security and performance.