CE-PBFT: A Cluster-Enabled Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance Consensus Protocol for Consortium Blockchain

Abstract

The fundamental component of blockchain systems, the consensus mechanism, is essential to maintaining the synchronized copy of the ledger amongst peers. The popular Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) consensus technique has considerable consensus latency and low throughput as the number of nodes in the network increases. A solution to this issue is suggested in this work: the Cluster-Enabled PBFT (CE-PBFT) consensus mechanism. Through an analysis of nodes' interactions with one another, it looks at how nodes behave inside networks. The activity of the node determines whether it belongs in the consensus or non-consensus cluster. In contrast to nodes in the consensus cluster, members of the non-consensus cluster take part in the consensus-building procedure. CE-PBFT is a more energy-efficient solution than PBFT since it makes use of its leader selection approach to select the most reliable node instantly. For a higher peer count, CE-PBFT is robust and scalable because nodes within a cluster can dynamically migrate to another based on their behavior over time. In comparison to PBFT and its version, the suggested method reduces the message communication count by up to 48.4%, resulting in increased throughput, as demonstrated by both the theoretical analysis and the simulation trials.