Fabric-X Networks
Fabric-X is a high-throughput, linearly-scalable variant of Hyperledger Fabric that separates ordering from committing and replaces in-band endorsement with an application-layer signing layer (token-sdk-x). ChainLaunch provides first-class support for deploying and operating Fabric-X networks alongside Fabric and Besu.
What is Fabric-X?
Fabric-X re-architects the classic Fabric transaction flow to break the peer bottleneck. Where classic Fabric bundles endorsement, ordering, and committing into a single peer process, Fabric-X splits them into independently-scalable services:
- Orderer group — establishes total order of transactions using Arma consensus.
- Committer — validates and commits blocks, serves queries from a relational store.
- token-sdk-x — lives in the application layer and handles per-transaction signing (what endorsing peers did in classic Fabric).
The result is a network where you can scale ordering, committing, and application signing independently, and where committers can serve rich SQL-style queries directly from postgres.
Key differences from Hyperledger Fabric
| Dimension | Classic Fabric | Fabric-X |
|---|---|---|
| Ordering consensus | Raft, SmartBFT | Arma (pBFT-derived, purpose-built for ordering) |
| Endorsement | Endorsing peers sign proposals in-band | Handled by token-sdk-x in the application layer |
| Commit path | Peers validate and commit | Dedicated committer pipeline (sidecar → coordinator → validator → verifier) |
| State backend | LevelDB / CouchDB per peer | Postgres per committer, queryable via a query-service |
| Channel model | Many channels per network | Single channel (arma) per network, partitioned by namespace |
| Chaincode | In-band execution on peers | Not applicable — business logic lives in token-sdk-x applications |
| Throughput | ~1,000 TPS | Designed for 10,000+ TPS with independent horizontal scaling |
When to choose Fabric-X
Fabric-X is a good fit when you need:
- High throughput — tokenized assets, payments, high-frequency supply-chain events.
- Rich queries — reporting, analytics, and compliance workloads that benefit from SQL against committed state.
- Separation of concerns — dedicated ops teams for ordering vs. committing vs. application logic.
- Token-native use cases — any workload built on the token-sdk-x programming model.
Stay on classic Fabric when you need:
- Multi-channel isolation.
- Existing chaincode investments.
- Lower-footprint deployments where the split-service architecture is overkill.
Architecture at a glance
A single Fabric-X party (one organization's stake in the network) runs two node groups managed by ChainLaunch:
A 4-party network therefore runs 40 containers across 8 ChainLaunch nodes
(4 orderer groups + 4 committers), sharing a single arma channel.
For the full data flow and port layout, see Architecture.
What ChainLaunch manages
ChainLaunch owns the infrastructure side of Fabric-X:
- Orderer groups and committers — lifecycle (create, join, start, stop, delete), crypto material, container orchestration.
- Genesis block generation — from the network's party list.
- Namespace management — creating and listing logical partitions within the
armachannel. - Block and transaction explorer — read-only view over committed state via the query-service.
- Network templates — export and import reproducible network definitions.
ChainLaunch does not manage:
- Application signing / endorsement — handled by token-sdk-x outside of ChainLaunch.
- Chaincode — Fabric-X does not use chaincode; business logic lives in token-sdk-x applications.
Getting started
- Quickstart — provision a full 4-party network from the web UI in one click.
- Architecture — understand the components, ports, and data flow.
- Create a network manually — step-by-step via API for production deployments and multi-network setups.
- Namespaces — logical partitioning within a Fabric-X network.
Operating a network
- Monitoring — Prometheus
/metricsendpoints for every role, plus a starter scrape config. - Certificate renewal — same-keypair renewal of signing and TLS certs without genesis regeneration.
- Backup and restore — what's snapshotted by restic, what's not, and how to restore.