Patent ID: 11960502
Assignee: VMWARE LLC
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 14:
15. An apparatus for using a backup client to back up a blockchain in a state machine replication system comprising N replicas, the apparatus comprising:
one or more computer processors; and
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions, that when executed, control the one or more computer processors to be operable for:
sending a plurality of first messages that request first information that includes identification information for a set of blocks of the blockchain to the N replicas, wherein each replica in the N replicas maintains a respective instance of the blockchain;
receiving a plurality of second messages from at least a portion of the N replicas including the first information for the set of blocks from each respective instance of the blockchain that is maintained by the at least the portion of the N replicas;
analyzing the first information from the plurality of second messages to determine whether a consensus on the first information included in the plurality of second messages is reached by a number of replicas;
when consensus is reached, sending a request to a replica that identifies one or more blocks using the identification information to back up to a backup blockchain;
receiving second information that is stored for the one or more blocks in the respective instance of the blockchain from the replica; and
using the second information to back up the one or more blocks in the backup blockchain.