Since its revolution in the financial sector, the blockchain technology disrupted the majority of collaboration-based applications including supply chain management. The supply chain is one of the most important sectors benefiting from all the advantages of blockchain. Through this paper, we are mainly focusing on the practical aspects of integrating blockchain technology with traditional and existing business applications. Indeed, most businesses and corporations will find it hard to shift from traditional architectures to a decentralized one with fears related to upgrading risks, unknown tools, and resistance to change. Thus, we mainly propose several scenarios for blockchain integration focusing on the most used Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms. Besides, we present our proof of concept integration that uses the HyperLedger Fabric blockchain platform and the Odoo ERP framework. The selection of these two solutions for our study was mainly influenced by the fact that Hyperledger is the most used open-source blockchain platform in the industry and that Odoo is the most used open-source ERP framework. Nevertheless, we believe that our proposed solution can easily be used with proprietary ERP platforms and business applications.
The aim of this paper is to review the blockchain technology and its benefits in relations to education system. Blockchain technology is widely researched and highly evaluated and appraised for its unique infrastructure. In general, blockchain researched for its association with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency advantages. In this survey the plan is to conduct a full review of previous literatures focused on blockchain in education systems. Provide overall reviews of blockchain concepts and architecture behind the technology and to examine verification software that used by the technology to improve security and immutability. Brief discussion on the consensus algorithms and hashing function and how these operate and difference type of blockchain will be discussed. In this survey, the existing technology used in Saudi Arabia will be reviewed. In-depth research conducted for over 70 papers, of which 35 noted in this survey. Blockchain emerging promise a real time democracy and justice to all users over the world. Educational Industries said to revolutionize its communication system and accessibility and extend their market globally by widening their admissions and providing secure cost-effective, transparent and immutable communications across their educational platforms.
The distributed ledger technology (DLT) has been envisioned to be a disruptive technology with applications in various industries. For the DLTs to be effectively used in practice, it is crucial to assess their performance in different use cases and scenarios. In this thesis, we first conduct a systematic survey on the performance evaluation of distributed ledgers. Then we identify and present the performance evaluation techniques, the most important performance metrics, and the bottlenecks of various well-known DLTs. Finally, we present a list of possible directions for future research. Our survey identifies the lack of a detailed performance evaluation for DAG-based distributed ledgers presented so far. Compared to blockchains, DAG-based DLTs offer better performance and scalability by design. In the second part of this thesis, we focus on the performance evaluation of IOTA, which is the prominent implementation of DAG-based distributed ledgers. In this work, we investigate the impact of different design parameters on the performance of an IOTA network. We then propose a layered model to help the users determine the optimal waiting time to resend an unconfirmed transaction. The results can be used by both system designers and users to support their decision making. In the third part of this thesis, we use the findings from the previous two parts to design an open blockchain-based serverless computing platform called ChainFaaS that runs on personal computers. To better understand the capacity of personal computers, we conducted a survey that aims to find their unused computational power. The results indicate that the typical CPU utilization of a personal computer is only 24.5% and, on average, a personal computer is only used 4.5 hours per day. This shows a significant computational potential that can be used towards distributed computing. In this work, we introduce ChainFaaS with the motivation to use the computational capacity of personal computers as well as to improve developers' experience of internet-based computing services by reducing their costs, enabling transparency, and providing reliability. We propose the design of ChainFaaS and then implement and evaluate a prototype of this platform to show the feasibility of this paradigm. The current implementation of ChainFaaS provides payment using a monetary smart contract on the blockchain network. For this platform to be used in practice, ChainFaaS needs to support payment in established cryptocurrencies. As a result, the blockchain network in ChainFaaS needs to interoperate with other distributed ledger technologies to enable such payments. In the last part of this thesis, we investigate a possible solution to enable interoperability in blockchains. We propose a blockchain interoperability solution for permissioned blockchains based on the publish/subscribe architecture. We then implement a prototype of the proposed solution and evaluate its performance. The result of this research not only enables ChainFaaS to support payments in established cryptocurrencies, but it also allows any other blockchain-based application to interoperate with other blockchain networks and use the data and information available on them.
The problem of transaction reordering in blockchains, also known as the blockchain anomaly [Christopher Natoli and Vincent Gramoli, 2016], can lead to fairness limitations [Kelkar et al., 2020] and front-running activities [Philip Daian et al., 2020] in cryptocurrency. To cope with this problem despite f < n/3 byzantine processes, Zhang et al. [Zhang et al., 2020] have introduced the ordering linearizability property ensuring that if two transactions or commands are perceived by all correct processes in the same order, then they are executed in this order. They proposed a generic distributed protocol that first orders commands and then runs a leader-based consensus protocol to agree on these orders, hence requiring at least 11 message delays. In this paper, we parallelize the ordering with the execution of the consensus to require only 6 message delays. For the ordering, we introduce the ordered reliable broadcast primitive suitable for broadcast-based cryptocurrencies (e.g., [Daniel Collins et al., 2020]). For the agreement, we build upon the DBFT leaderless consensus protocol [Tyler Crain et al., 2018] that was recently formally verified [Bertrand et al., 2021]. The combination is thus suitable to ensure ordering linearizability in consensus-based cryptocurrencies (e.g., [Tyler Crain et al., 2021]).
Abstract Blockchain presents a feasible method to persist immutable information in a distributed ledger to improve the level of authentication and trust. Moreover, smart contracts enable the automated execution of any contract concluded between participants of the Blockchain network. On the other hand, Microservice Architecture (MSA) is a novel approach towards service-based scalable applications. In our paper, we present an approach based on Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) that aims to facilitate the integration process of Blockchains into MSA-based applications in order to benefit from the advantages attributed to Blockchains.
Blockchain is an emerging technology that has many uses and applications among many industries such as banking, education, and tourism. It has proven over time to be more cryptographically secure than traditional databases. Many people confuse Bitcoin with Blockchain. Because of the considerable value of Bitcoins, people have the perception that blockchain technology requires large computing infrastructure and power due to CPU bottleneck challenges. This paper presents the process used in testing blockchain technology performance on a virtual machine by focusing on benchmarking workloads like CPUHeavy using Ethereum blockchain and comparing two different algorithm sorts, Quick and bubble. The results of the testing indicate that blockchain workloads can be performed on smaller machines with very little CPU bottlenecks. In addition, performance test outcomes found that the CPUHeavy and Quicksort was more superior.
Yihan Liu, Ke Li, Zihao Huang, Bowen Li · 6 authors
The predominant centralized paradigm in educational data management currently suffers from several critical issues such as vulnerability to malicious tampering, a high prevalence of diploma counterfeiting, and the onerous cost of certificate authentication. Decentralized blockchain technology, with its cutting-edge capabilities, presents a viable solution to these pervasive problems. In this paper, we illuminate the inherent limitations of existing centralized systems and introduce EduChain, a novel heterogeneous blockchain-based system for managing educational data. EduChain uniquely harnesses the strengths of both private and consortium blockchains, offering an unprecedented level of security and efficiency. In addition, we propose a robust mechanism for performing database consistency checks and error tracing. This is achieved through the implementation of a secondary consensus, employing the pt-table-checksum tool. This approach effectively addresses the prevalent issue of database mismatches. Our system demonstrates superior performance in key areas such as information verification, error traceback, and data security, thereby significantly improving the integrity and trustworthiness of educational data management. Through EduChain, we offer a powerful solution for future advancements in secure and efficient educational data management.
Befekadu G. Gebraselase, Bjarne E. Helvik, Yuming Jiang
Bitcoin has become the leading cryptocurrency system, but the limit on its transaction processing capacity has resulted in increased transaction fees and delayed transaction confirmation. As such, it is pertinent to understand and probably predict how transactions are handled by Bitcoin such that a user may adapt the transaction requests and a miner may adjust the block generation strategy and/or the mining pool to join. To this aim, the present paper introduces results from an analysis of transaction handling in Bitcoin. Specifically, the analysis consists of two-part. The first part is an exploratory data analysis revealing key characteristics in Bitcoin transaction handling. The second part is a predictability analysis intended to provide insights on transaction handling such as (i) transaction confirmation time, (ii) block attributes, and (iii) who has created the block. The result shows that some models do reasonably well for (ii), but surprisingly not for (i) or (iii).
The exponential growth of digital transactions and regulatory requirements has necessitated the development of robust, transparent, and tamper-proof recordkeeping systems that can withstand the scrutiny of modern audit processes. This comprehensive study investigates the implementation and effectiveness of blockchain-based architectures for regulatory recordkeeping systems, with particular emphasis on achieving real-time audit readiness across multiple industry sectors. The research examines how distributed ledger technology can address the fundamental challenges of data integrity, transparency, and immutability that traditional centralized recordkeeping systems have struggled to resolve effectively. The investigation encompasses a thorough analysis of existing blockchain frameworks, consensus mechanisms, and smart contract implementations specifically designed for regulatory compliance applications. Through systematic evaluation of various blockchain architectures, including permissioned networks, hybrid systems, and consortium blockchains, this study identifies optimal configurations for different regulatory environments. The research methodology combines theoretical framework analysis with practical implementation case studies from financial services, healthcare, supply chain management, and energy sectors to provide comprehensive insights into the practical applications and limitations of blockchain-based regulatory systems. Key findings reveal that blockchain-based architectures demonstrate significant improvements in data integrity verification, audit trail transparency, and compliance monitoring capabilities compared to traditional systems. The study identifies critical success factors including proper node governance structures, appropriate consensus mechanisms, integration with existing enterprise systems, and compliance with data privacy regulations. However, the research also highlights substantial challenges including scalability limitations, energy consumption concerns, regulatory uncertainty, and the complexity of legacy system integration that must be addressed for successful implementation. The research contributes to the existing body of knowledge by proposing a comprehensive framework for evaluating blockchain suitability for specific regulatory environments, developing implementation guidelines for different industry contexts, and identifying best practices for maintaining audit readiness in distributed ledger systems. The study concludes that while blockchain technology offers transformative potential for regulatory recordkeeping, successful implementation requires careful consideration of technical, regulatory, and organizational factors to ensure both compliance and operational efficiency.
Recently, blockchain technology accumulates and stores all transactions. Therefore, in order to verify the contents of all transactions, the data itself is compressed, but the scalability is limited. In addition, since a separate verification algorithm is used for each type of transaction, the verification burden increases as the size of the transaction increases. Existing blockchain cannot participate in the network because it does not become a block sink by using a server with a low specification. Due to this problem, as the time passes, the data size of the blockchain network becomes larger and it becomes impossible to participate in the network except for users with abundant resources. Therefore, in this paper, we studied the zero knowledge proof algorithm for general operation verification. In this system, the design of zero-knowledge circuit generator capable of general operation verification and optimization of verifier and prover were also conducted. Also, we developed an algorithm for optimizing key generation. Based on all of these, the zero-knowledge proof algorithm was applied to and tested on the virtual machine so that it can be used universally on all blockchains.
operates on a blockchain full node maintained directly by the DApp owner (i.e., an in-house RPC node) or a set of nodes hosted by a third party (i.e., a third-party RPC service) intended to ease DApp deployment. Given the ever-growing blockchain states (e.g., 130 GB and 1.8 TB for a fully synced and an archived Ethereum node, respectively, as of 2018), the RPC service plays an increasingly important role in the DApp ecosystem, scaling DApp clients to low-end mobile devices and web browsers. Major blockchains today flock to roll out RPC supports, which spawn a good number of services in practice, including nine service providers (as is evaluated in this work) supporting the Ethereum's JSON-RPC interface [16], blockchain.info [5] with Bitcoin's JSON-RPC [2], dfuse.io [13] and greymass.com [39] with EOSIO's Chain API [6], stellar.org [46] with Stellar Horizon [23], etc. These services host the majority of DApps; for instance, at least 63% of Ethereum based DApps use one RPC service [10]. DApp clients RPC service JSON-RPC Block/tx synchronization Blockchain peers
Muhammad Imran Sarwar, Muhammad Waseem Iqbal, Tahir Alyas, Abdallah Namoun · 7 authors
When designed, technologies and frameworks are not created to be as dynamic and flexible as to cater to the requirements of other domains, and so is the case with Blockchain technology. Specifically designed for cryptocurrency, Blockchain was not intended to be used in other domains. However, during the past few years, critics argued that Blockchain has the potential to deal with some unique requirements like confidentiality and immutability and can therefore be deployed in several areas other than cryptocurrency. The use of Blockchain to support Accounting Information Systems (AIS) through enterprise resource planning (ERP) is another motivating domain to investigate in this research. ERP is another promising technology that has gained significant attention across the globe. In this research, a hybrid solution is proposed to ensure AIS data integrity against any deliberate attempt or mala-fide intention for alteration or deletion from the database that can be verified at any later stage. Since Blockchain can be used to prevent any mutability in the stored data, the proposed solution presents a concept of Data Vaults backed by the Blockchain. To this end, we apply cryptographic primitives like SHA256 on the data inside the block and then chain that block to secure data vaults. So far, Blockchain has not yet proven itself as an alternative to any traditional database system. However, it can be applied in conjunction with the Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) to provide cost-effective yet robust solutions. This research demonstrates the application of a simple and lean version of Blockchain to assist enterprises in storing their financial and accounting data into data vaults, ensuring their data integrity against any alterations. The suggested cost-effective framework can be easily integrated into AIS and ERP systems to identify data breaches.
Jan 1, 2021·Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Johannes Sedlmeir, Philipp Ross, André Luckow, Jannik Lockl · 6 authors
Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) promise to revolutionize business ecosystems by permitting secure transactions without intermediaries. A widely recognized challenge that inhibits the uptake of DLT is scalability and performance. Hence, quantifying key metrics such as throughput and latency is crucial for designing DLT-based infrastructures, applications, and ecosystems. However, current benchmarking frameworks for blockchains do not cover the whole benchmarking process; impeding transparent comparisons of different DLT networks. In this paper, we present the Distributed Ledger Performance Scan (DLPS), an open-source framework for end-to-end performance characterizations of blockchains, addressing the need to transparently and automatically evaluate the performance of highly customizable configurations. We describe our new framework and argue that it significantly improves existing DLT benchmarking solutions. To demonstrate the capabilities of the DLPS, we also summarize the main results obtained from a series of experiments that we have conducted with it, giving a first comprehensive comparison of essential scalability properties of several commonly used enterprise blockchains.
Yogesh N. Patil, Arvind W. Kiwelekar, Laxman D. Netak, S. B. Deosarkar
Administering standardized examinations is a challenging task, especially for those universities for which colleges affiliated to it are geographically distributed over a wide area. Some of the challenges include maintaining integrity and confidentiality of examination records, preventing mal-practices, issuing unique identification numbers to a large student population and managing assets required for the smooth conduct of examinations. These challenges aggravate when colleges affiliated to universities demand academic and administrative autonomy by demonstrating best practices consistently over a long period. In this chapter, we describe a model for decentralized and autonomous examination system to provide the necessary administrative support. The model is based on two emerging technologies of Blockchain Technology and Internet of Things (IoT). We adopt a software architecture approach to describe the model. The prescriptive architecture consists of {\em architectural mappings} which map functional and non-functional requirements to architectural elements of blockchain technology and IoT. In architectural mappings, first, we identify common use-cases in administering standardized examinations. Then we map these use-cases to the core elements of blockchain, i.e. distributed ledgers, cryptography, consensus protocols and smart-contracts and IoT. Such kind of prescriptive architecture guide downstream software engineering processes of implementation and testing
Remigijus Paulavičius, Saulius Grigaitis, Ernestas Filatovas
In recent years, distributed ledger technologies, and especially blockchain, have gained tremendous interest from academia, government, and industry. Although various blockchain-based solutions were created, the lack of tools to evaluate these complex distributed systems may hinder the development of the field. Many advantages of blockchain systems can be demonstrated only at large scales, e.g., using thousands of nodes. An investigation of different implementations and design choices is complicated and hardly feasible on real systems. Meanwhile, blockchain simulators give the possibility to repeat the complex real-world processes at a low cost. This work provides the first and an up-to-date systematic review and empirical analysis of blockchain simulators. Simulators are easily extensible and can test the performance of distributed ledgers using different settings and parameters on a single computer. The features and limitations of selected simulators are summarized and experimentally validated. Finally, recommendations for potential future research directions in the field are provided.
Nowadays, data are generated in a continuous streaming manner as the inputs of various applications. The sources of such generated data can be wired or wireless sensor networks commonly used in various fields of geographical, traffic, Internet of Things (IoT), financial tickers, Web2 and Web3, e-commerce, social networks, and online communities. The high volume, high variety, and high velocity of data have recently posed the challenge of 3Vs to this field, also known as the Big Data Problem. The 3Vs dimensions of complexities for the big data entails high-speed storage, scalability of database systems, suitable data models, real-time responsiveness and so on. Data model, as the representation schema of data is an essential issue since many others (e.g., DBMS systems’ design, DB languages, etc.) rely on. So, the study of data models is a key and fundamental aspect in structuring, organizing, storing, and manipulating big data. It is also the essence in various areas of cloud migration, web-scale, and so forth. In this paper, we have systematically reviewed different types of data models, the rationale behind them, their applications and support capabilities, and the technologies to switch from one model to another. To address the user needs in various fields, a systematic review method is adopted to classify and present different types and characteristics of data models.
Mikel Cortes-Goicoechea, Luca Franceschini, Leonardo Bautista-Gomez
Scalability is a common issue among the most used permissionless blockchains, and several approaches have been proposed accordingly. As Ethereum is set to be a solid foundation for a decentralized Internet web, the need for tackling scalability issues while preserving the security of the network is an important challenge. In order to successfully deliver effective scaling solutions, Ethereum is on the path of a major protocol improvement called Ethereum 2.0 (Eth2), which implements sharding. As the change of consensus mechanism is an extremely delicate matter, this improvement will be achieved through different phases, the first of which is the implementation of the Beacon Chain. For this, a specification has been developed and multiple groups have implemented clients to run the new protocol. In this work, we analyse the resource usage behaviour of different clients running as Eth2 nodes, comparing their performance and analysing differences. Our results show multiple network perturbations and how different clients react to it.
This paper proposes a decentralized framework for the orchestration of Cloud Services using heterogeneous resources residing in the homes of private individuals or small-scale clusters. The framework makes use of Ethereum Smart Contracts to provide a decentralized mechanism for discovering the different interfaces exposed by Cloud Components. The paper introduces a novel concept of Component Administration Networks, which are peer-to-peer networks that monitor and ensure the availability of the software components. The concept applied for the Orchestration process to ensure that the deployment of an Application continues in the presence of Orchestrator component failure. Checkpoints are used to address the continuity of the Management components, in general, and of the Orchestrator, in particular. In our proposal, checkpoint metadata is stored in a Smart Contract to assess the execution time of a Service to reimburse the participants that ensure its execution.
Digital finance encompasses digital information feedback on credit credibility and electronic transactions based on digital currencies.In recent years, driven by blockchain technology and cloud computing, digital finance has boomed in developed countries, giving rise to new issues and potential risks.With the transformation of digital finance from 'crypto' to 'cloud', a new trend is emerging.Digital finance driven by cloud computing, whether on public clouds or on-chain clouds, offers a plethora of opportunities, but the migration to native digital finance systems based on cloud infrastructure would be fraught with risk.Cloud computing, with its convenience, flexibility, security and scalability, continues to become a mainstream technology in retail finance.Multi-modal federated machine learning and federated cloud transactions can potentially construct a decentralized market with permissioned access while achieving snapshot privacy.Blockchain will continue its widespread adoption in developer-centric financial backends as technology matures, with larger public chains evolving to handle benchmark trading volumes.On miniambilest, native public and enterprise banks, decentralized exchanges, NFT-backed loans and on-chain credit scores will rise, creating liquidity for illiquid assets and granting borrowing access to previously excluded participants.The rising popularity of cryptocurrencies may, on the contrary, accelerate KYC, AML and the adoption of CBDCs.Security issues in cloud computing may cause significant financial losses, as there have been cases in the past where public cloud services have suffered data breaches.In some cases, thousands of GB of customer financial and transaction data have leaked online and caused significant reputational damage, emphasizing the importance of choosing a reliable cloud service vendor [2].Observations made during web scraping consisting of an analysis of exchange user cases showed that data breaches have exposed customer account information, previous transactions, and even 3D model photos of the vault and keys used to hide hardware wallets in a bank deposit facility.Furthermore, the archive and backup of large-scale retail finance databases in the public cloud may incur long data retrieval delay of over 100ms.The lost backup can also put the entire institution at risk if the vendor service becomes bankrupt, or if a natural disaster damages their facilities.Despite the rapid year-on-year growth of this new financial market, currently, only limited assets, such as the Bitcoin reward for blockchain mining, can be traded on-chain.
Blockchain is a technology for storing an immutable history of transactions in a decentralized platform by using cryptographic principles. Many industries have become interested in adopting blockchain within their IT systems. However, the accessibility, privacy, performance, and scalability aspects of different blockchain-based platforms are still legitimate concerns when designing an enterprise solution. Permissioned blockchain frameworks facilitate a way to immutably store confidential records. Numerous research studies have been carried out on the opportunities, challenges, application areas, and performance analysis of different public and permissioned blockchain-based platforms. However, the implication of blockchain in recent private enterprise solution requires detailed comparative analysis. This paper conducts a performance and scalability analysis of popular private blockchain platforms, including Ethereum (private deployment), Quorum, Corda, and Hyperledger Fabric. Each of these platforms is assessed by varying the workloads (no. of transactions and nodes) and determining the performance evaluation metrics such as throughput and network latency.
Blockchain is a promising new technology, generating widespread interest, and receiving considerable attention in the research community, such as academia and industry. This interest started with the success of Bitcoin but took speed with the promise of smart contracts and a vast number of applications. While there is a broad interest in developing blockchain systems for specific use cases, there is a lack of tools to perform their evaluation and implementation decisions may hamper fast progress. This report provides the review of security and performance of public and private blockchain framework, where each of which is represented by the two well-known papers, the first is titled “On the Security and Performance of Proof of Work Blockchains” and the second paper is titled “BLOCKBENCH: A Framework for Analyzing Private Blockchains”. The first paper introduces a novel quantitative framework to analyze the security and performance implications of various consensus and network parameters of PoW blockchains. The framework allows for capture existing PoW-based deployments as well as PoW blockchain variants that are instantiated with different parameters, and to objectively compare the tradeoffs between their performance and security provisions. In the second paper, the authors describe BlockBench, the first evaluation framework for analyzing private blockchains. BlockBench measures overall and componentwise performance in terms of throughput, latency, scalability, and fault-tolerance. Next, BlockBench is used to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of three major private blockchains: Ethereum, Parity, and Hyperledger Fabric. Furthermore, there are gaps in performance among the three systems which are attributed to the design choices at different layers of the blockchain’s software stack.