Rapid-Prototyping of Integrated Edge/Fog and DLT/Blockchain Systems with Fogbed

Abstract

Edge and fog computing are models to develop internet of things (IoT) solutions with mobility, location awareness, low latency and that allow the processing of large amount of data. Distributed ledger technologies (DLT), such as blockchain, improve IoT system interoperability by enabling a more secure and decentralized way to share data. Recent research has pointed out that integrating current paradigms such as edge/fog and DLT/blockchain allows the development of responsive and secure IoT solutions. Despite recent advances in edge/fog platforms, the current modeling tools are adapted to evaluate edge/fog solutions in limited environments with no DLT/blockchain support. This paper presents an extensible toolset integration to enable edge/fog-based DLT testbeds in virtualized environments. The proposed architecture extends Fogbed to allow the deployment and testing of real-world Edge/Fog-DLT solutions in a scalable way. A case study to demonstrate the emulation and benefits of Edge/Fog-DLT systems is presented. Furthermore, future developments and research directions are discussed.