What’s New for Oracle Blockchain Platform

Here’s an overview of the new features and enhancements that were recently added to Oracle Blockchain Platform Enterprise Edition. This document is organized by the date a specific feature or capability became available.

Topics

Release 21.1.2 - April 2021

Feature Description
Supports Raft consensus

In previous releases Kafka was the only available consensus type of orderer. As of this release, Raft consensus is supported and Kafka is no longer supported.

With this feature, orderers from multiple organizations can join a cluster, and channels can use different Raft orderer clusters to distribute load and provide better scalability.

See What is the Ordering Service?
REST API updates

There are a set of new REST APIs for Oracle Blockchain Platform Administrative and Application Operations. See: REST API for Oracle Blockchain Platform.

For a list of new REST APIs and changed behavior, see New, Changed, and Deprecated REST APIs.

Hardware security module (HSM) support

Oracle Blockchain Platform now supports using a SafeNet hardware security module (HSM) to store and manage keys. Specifically, the SafeNet Luna Network HSM device and SafeNet Luna HSM on Demand cloud service are supported.

See Configure a Hardware Security Module Client.

Added support for backup OpenLDAP and Oracle Internet Directory authentication servers

You can now specify up to two backup servers to use if the primary OpenLDAP or Oracle Internet Directory server is unavailable.

See Configure an External OpenLDAP, Oracle Unified Directory, or Oracle Internet Directory Server.

Blockchain App Builder for Oracle Blockchain Platform v1.4

A new component of Oracle Blockchain Platform to help speed up development of custom blockchain applications. It helps to expedite chaincode development, testing and deployment with a powerful CLI and Visual Studio Code extension. And it enables automated chaincode generation with a no-code/low-code approach for professionals looking to quickly model blockchain applications based on a declarative specification of the assets and their behaviors. Download it from Developer Tools tab in your blockchain instance.

See: Blockchain App Builder.

Rich history database supports blockchain tables

You can now store rich history data in blockchain tables. You can also configure rich history at the channel level as well as the instance level, get rich history replication status, and use channel policies to control access to rich history data.

See Enable and Configure the Rich History Database.

Release 19.3.5 - December 2020

Feature Description
Fine-grained access control sample

Oracle Blockchain Platform now provides a new version of the marbles sample on the Developer Tools tab of the console. This sample includes a library of functions that chaincode developers can use to create access control lists for chaincode functions.

See Using the Fine-Grained Access Control Library.

Block validation utility
Block validation can be run from a REST API endpoint. It:
  • Parses local blockchain ledger files.
  • Verifies the integrity and data format.
  • Collects statistics such as block size, number of transactions, etc.

See Block Validation REST API.

Release 19.3.4 - March 2020

Feature Description
Added support for Microsoft Active Directory and Oracle Internet Directory as authentication servers

Previously user authentication was only supported via a built-in or external OpenLDAP server.

Starting in this release, Microsoft Active Directory or Oracle Internet Directory can be used for authentication.

See Configure an Authentication Server.

Release 19.3.3 - November 2019

Feature Description
Improved and simplified logging

Access to log messages from all components in an Oracle Blockchain Platform instance are now available in real time.

Additionally Blockchain Platform Manager access information is now available in logs.

See Logging
Perform instance lifecycle tasks from Blockchain Platform Manager

All Blockchain instance lifecycle activities (such as starting or stopping the instance) are now available in Blockchain Platform Manager.

See Manage Oracle Blockchain Platform

Documentation Accessibility

For information about Oracle's commitment to accessibility, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program website at http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=docacc.

Access to Oracle Support

Oracle customers that have purchased support have access to electronic support through My Oracle Support. For information, visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=info or visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=trs if you are hearing impaired.