GlassDB: An Efficient Verifiable Ledger Database System Through Transparency

Cong Yue, Gang Chen, Tien Tuan Anh Dinh, Beng Chin Ooi, Zhongle Xie, Xiaokui Xiao, Meihui Zhang

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Verifiable ledger databases protect data history against malicious tampering. Existing systems, such as blockchains and certificate transparency, are based on transparency logs — a simple abstraction allowing users to verify that a log maintained by an untrusted server is append-only. They expose a simple key-value interface without transactions. Building a practical database from transparency logs, on the other hand, remains a challenge. In this paper, we explore the design space of verifiable ledger databases along three dimensions: abstraction, threat model, and performance. We survey existing systems and identify their two limitations, namely, the lack of transaction support and the inferior efficiency. We then present GlassDB, a distributed database system that addresses these limitations under a practical threat model. GlassDB inherits the verifiability of transparency logs, but supports transactions and offers high performance. It extends a ledger-like key-value store with a data structure for efficient proofs, and adds a concurrency control mechanism for transactions. GlassDB batches independent operations from concurrent transactions when updating the core data structures. In addition, we design a new benchmark for evaluating verifiable ledger databases, by extending YCSB and TPC-C benchmarks. Using this benchmark, we compare GlassDB against four baselines: reimplemented versions of three verifiable databases, and a verifiable map backed by a transparency log. Experimental results demonstrate that GlassDB is an efficient, transactional, and verifiable ledger database system.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1359-1371
Number of pages13
JournalProceedings of the VLDB Endowment
Volume16
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Event49th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases, VLDB 2023 - Vancouver, Canada
Duration: 28 Aug 20231 Sept 2023

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Yue, C., Chen, G., Dinh, T. T. A., Ooi, B. C., Xie, Z., Xiao, X., & Zhang, M. (2023). GlassDB: An Efficient Verifiable Ledger Database System Through Transparency. Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment, 16(6), 1359-1371. https://doi.org/10.14778/3583140.3583152