In this section, you will learn how to build a complete application around the core smart contract that can be readily used by the business entities that have joined together to form a network. We will begin with a recap of the Hyperledger Fabric transaction pipeline to remind the reader what (and how) a blockchain application does from the perspective of the user (or client). Using code samples, we will show you how to build, design, and organize a network around the needs of business entities, create appropriate configurations, and effect the different stages of a blockchain transaction from start to finish. At the end of this process, the reader will understand how to engineer a Fabric application and expose its capabilities through a simple web interface. The only asset we need to possess in the beginning of this chapter is the contract, or chaincode, which was developed using either hands-on Go programming (see Chapter 4, Designing a data and transaction model with Golang).

In the back-end of this chapter, we will guide the experienced enterprise developer through more advanced topics, such as service design patterns, reliability, and other common engineering concerns. Although these concerns apply to every distributed application, we will discuss the special needs and issues of blockchain-based applications.