Blockchain Data Storage Using Erasure Coding for Fault Tolerance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Blockchain networks face challenges in efficiently storing large amounts of data due to uneven data distribution across nodes, leading to potential data security risks and storage inefficiencies, especially when faulty nodes exist.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method using error correction coding (ECC) to encode blockchain data, dividing it into datasets with redundant bits, and assigning these datasets across multiple nodes to ensure data integrity and equality, while allowing for efficient retrieval and storage optimization.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If every node stores an entire copy of the blockchain, then data integrity is maintained, but storage space consumption increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides blockchain data into multiple fragments using erasure coding technology. Each node stores only a portion of the fragmented data rather than complete copies, reducing individual storage requirements while maintaining collective data integrity through distributed fragment storage across the network.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses erasure coding to create redundant data copies in a controlled manner. Instead of storing full duplicates of the entire blockchain on each node, the system generates encoded fragments that can be recombined to reconstruct the original data, achieving redundancy with reduced storage overhead.
2Quantity of substance
If a few shared nodes store the entire copy of the blockchain, then storage space is saved for other nodes, but data security risk increases due to data inequality
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments blockchain data into multiple fragments and distributes them across all nodes in the network. This segmentation ensures that no single node holds the complete dataset, preventing data centralization and associated security risks while maintaining storage efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements equipotentiality by ensuring all nodes have equal access to and storage responsibility for blockchain data fragments. Each node stores comparable amounts of fragmented data, eliminating data inequality and creating a balanced distribution where every node contributes equally to network security and data availability.
3Reliability
If error correction coding is performed on each node, then data fault tolerance is improved, but computational resource consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs error correction coding in advance during the data fragmentation process. By pre-encoding the blockchain data into erasure-coded fragments before distribution, the system eliminates the need for each node to independently perform computationally intensive error correction operations, reducing overall computational resource consumption while maintaining fault tolerance.
Data Source
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AI summary
Disclosed herein are methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for storing blockchain data. One of the methods includes retrieving a plurality of blocks from a blockchain node of the blockchain network, encoding the plurality of blocks using error correction coding (ECC) to generate a plurality of encoded blocks, and for each encoded block in the plurality of encoded blocks: dividing the encoded block into a plurality of datasets, calculating hash values of the plurality of datasets, sending a request that includes at least one of the plurality of datasets, the hash values, and a data storage scheme that provides assignments of the plurality of datasets to the plurality of blockchain nodes, receiving responses for accepting the request from at least a number of blockchain nodes that equals a number of the one or more datasets of information bits, and sending a notification for adopting the data storage scheme.