A Scalable Architecture for Monitoring IoT Devices Using Ethereum and\n Fog Computing

Abstract

With the recent considerable developments in the Internet of Things (IoT),\nbillions of resource-constrained devices are interconnected through the\ninternet. Monitoring this huge number of IoT devices that are heterogeneous in\nterms of underlying communication protocols and data format is challenging. The\nmajority of existing IoT device monitoring solutions heavily rely on\ncentralized architectures. Since using centralized architectures comes at the\nexpense of trusting an authority, it has several inherent drawbacks, including\nvulnerability to security attacks, lack of data privacy, and unauthorized data\nmanipulation. Hence, a new decentralized approach is crucial to remedy these\ndrawbacks. One of the most promising technologies which is widely used to\nprovide decentralization is blockchain. Additionally, to ease the burden of\ncommunication overhead and computational power on resource-constrained IoT\ndevices, fog computing can be exploited to decrease communication latency and\nprovide better network scalability.\n In this paper, we propose a scalable blockchain-based architecture for\nmonitoring IoT devices using fog computing. To demonstrate the feasibility and\nusability of the proposed solution, we have implemented a proof-of-concept\nprototype, leveraging Ethereum smart contracts. Finally, a comprehensive\nevaluation is conducted. The evaluation results indicate that the proposed\nsolution is significantly scalable and compatible with resource-constrained IoT\ndevices.\n