Distributed Ledger Technology to Enable Secure Management of IT Infrastructures : Development and evaluation of a Proof-of-concept tool using Hyperledger Fabric

Abstract

IT Infrastructures have grown in both size and complexity. To help administrators to manage their infrastructure, several Infrastructure Management (IM) Tools have been created. However, none of them implements a secure and traceable log of changes that can bring accountability to the management of such infrastructures. On the other hand, recent research and development in blockchain technologies has allowed for the creation of Distributed Ledgers that can provide secure, immutable and traceable ledgers. These technologies have the potential to solve the problem by dynamically registering the changes the infrastructure management tools apply to IT infrastructures. For that purpose, a Proof-of-Concept tool was developed that incorporates a Permissioned Distributed Ledger, based on Hyperledger Fabric, as a middle layer to infrastructure management tools such as Ansible and Terraform, to prove the suitability of these technologies to provide a secure and immutable resource inventory and log of changes that enables for traceability and accountability of all modifications to the IT infrastructure, while also providing user identity management and control.