Oleksandr Ulichev, Oleksandr Dorenskyi, Victor Kulahin
The rapid advancement of technology and increasing market competition compel businesses to adapt swiftly by implementing new features and services to meet user demands. Traditional monolithic software architectures often hinder this agility due to challenges in scalability and maintenance. This article aims to analyze microservice architecture to solve these challenges, exploring its historical development, current trends, practical implementation aspects, and comparison with alternative architectural styles such as modulith architecture. The study examines the limitations of monolithic architectures in handling growing complexity and scaling requirements. It explores the emergence of microservice architecture, highlighting core characteristics like independent services, decentralized data management, and autonomous deployment. The evolution influenced by agile methodologies and DevOps practices is discussed. A comparative analysis with other architectural styles—including monolithic, service-oriented, modular monolithic, and serverless architectures—identifies contexts where microservices are most beneficial. The research reviews essential tools and technologies for implementing microservices, such as Docker for containerization, Kubernetes for orchestration, and service meshes like Istio and Linkerd. Practical cases from industry leaders like Netflix and Amazon illustrate successful adoption and the challenges faced during implementation. Findings indicate that while microservice architecture offers significant scalability, flexibility, and rapid deployment advantages, it also introduces complexities related to distributed system management and security. The study emphasizes the importance of adopting best practices and standards, such as those promoted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and utilizing modern tools to mitigate these challenges. For organizations where full microservices adoption may be impractical, modulith architecture is a viable alternative that combines modularity with deployment simplicity. The article concludes that the choice of architecture should be carefully aligned with the project's specific needs, resources, and long-term strategic goals.
Root cause analysis (RCA) in Micro-services architecture (MSA) with escalating complexity encounters complex challenges in maintaining system stability and efficiency due to fault propagation and circular dependencies among nodes. Diverse root cause analysis faults require multi-agents with diverse expertise. To mitigate the hallucination problem of large language models (LLMs), we design blockchain-inspired voting to ensure the reliability of the analysis by using a decentralized decision-making process. To avoid non-terminating loops led by common circular dependency in MSA, we objectively limit steps and standardize task processing through Agent Workflow. We propose a pioneering framework, multi-Agent Blockchain-inspired Collaboration for root cause analysis in micro-services architecture (mABC), where multiple agents based on the powerful LLMs follow Agent Workflow and collaborate in blockchain-inspired voting. Specifically, seven specialized agents derived from Agent Workflow each provide valuable insights towards root cause analysis based on their expertise and the intrinsic software knowledge of LLMs collaborating within a decentralized chain. Our experiments on the AIOps challenge dataset and a newly created Train-Ticket dataset demonstrate superior performance in identifying root causes and generating effective resolutions. The ablation study further highlights Agent Workflow, multi-agent, and blockchain-inspired voting is crucial for achieving optimal performance. mABC offers a comprehensive automated root cause analysis and resolution in micro-services architecture and significantly improves the IT Operation domain. The code and dataset are in https://github.com/zwpride/mABC.
The integration of technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), Big data, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) has empowered modern vehicles with the ability to communicate with one another for better cooperation on the roads. However, the communication between vehicles exposes the whole intelligent transportation system to new attack vectors. Malicious vehicles can spread misleading information, which, if acted upon, might result in traffic congestion, accidents, chaos, and even fatalities. As a countermeasure, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) proposes a framework, TR 103 460, for reporting abnormal behavior. However, there are many shortcomings, such as the absence of a peer-to-peer (P2P) misbehavior reporting (MR) service and the inability to secure the reporter's identity and reported information. To protect vehicles from abuse, we propose a P2P non-interactive zero-knowledge proof-based privacy-preserving MR framework. Upon testing, we found that the proposed framework prevented the disclosure of the reporter's identity and information and reduced the ITS-Stations' (ITS-Ss) exposure to misbehavior by 67.7% and 79.2% in suburban and highway traffic scenarios, respectively.
Juanjuan Li, Xiaolong Liang, Rui Qin, Fei–Yue Wang
As the key component of the emerging Web3, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations and Operations (DAOs) enables decentralized decision-making and governance mainly driven by blockchain and smart contracts. This paper first provides a comprehensive examination of DAOs’ evolution, tracing their historical development and the progression of their definitions and underlying concepts. Then, it presents their classical governance models founded on token economics and analyzes typical practical cases, subsequently identifying the current dilemmas faced by DAO governance. To address these dilemmas, TRUE Autonomous Organizations and Operations (TAOs) are proposed, which underscores the trustable, reliable, usable, efficient and effective essence of decentralization. Besides, the distinctions between TAOs and DAOs are discussed from perspective of the value systems, governance structures, incentive allocation, decision-making model. Furthermore, it highlights the research issues that need to be addressed to realize the full potential of TAOs.
Muhammad Ikram Mohd Rashid, Imran Rasool, Nazir Ahmad Zafar, Hamra Afzaal
The Ethereum 2.0 Beacon chain is a big step toward improving the security, scalability, and decentralization. It is based on the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus protocol that maintains the validator status, attestation details, and many more. The term validator is introduced in the PoS consensus protocol and its work is to propose blocks and vote for them by becoming a committee member to add those blocks to the blockchain. We address the problem related to validator’s voluntary exit to vanish its active status and do its formal verification using the SPIN Model checker. There does not exist much research in this area as it was introduced recently in 2020. Further, this is the first work on formal verification of the beacon chain using the SPIN model checker. In this work, we formally specify the validator exit process of the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain using the formal specification language, i.e., Process or Protocol Meta Language (PROMELA). We create a program graph for this process through the SPIN Model checker and describe safety and liveness properties using Linear temporal logic (LTL) in the form of a formula. The formal verification is performed to ensure correctness by giving the program graph and LTL formulas as input to the SPIN model checker whether the properties are satisfied with the program graph
In the rapidly evolving domain of distributed ledger technology, scalability and interoperability have become paramount challenges for both academic and industry sectors. In this paper, we introduce a comprehensive formal model to address atomic composability across multiple rollups on Ethereum. The proposed model incorporates mechanisms like buffering, dependency management, concurrency control, and the groundbreaking zero-knowledge proofs. Moreover, we evaluate its practical repercussions, strengths, and weaknesses, ensuring resilience against manipulative or erroneous actions. The application of the proposed model to shared sequencers and other existing solutions accentuates its versatility and universality.
Dmitry A. Zaitsev, Tatiana R. Shmeleva, Zeyu Zhou, Ding Liu
The reliability of consensus protocols establishes the basis for cryptocurrency cybersecurity. Formal and simulation techniques are appreciated for the verification of proof-of-work agreement protocols, because the formal techniques development process frequently requires a series of assumptions, leading to somewhat unrealistic models. A conventional colored Petri net model, presented by the authors in a previous study, allowed us to refine the Keller and Böhme consensus protocol by applying the simulation technique. In this study, we developed a reenterable colored Petri net model representing a general construct for model-driven development and refinement of consensus protocols and the corresponding software. A considerable benefit of a reenterable model is the invariance of its structure with respect to the net topology, number of attached nodes, and parameters of their software and hardware, which are represented as the marking of dedicated places. Switching of topology tags associated with dynamic objects represents the basic principle of reenterable model functioning. It is shown that, having the same characteristics, in bounds of admissible error of some 2-3%, the reenterable model results in 6 times speed-up of the simulation process and a drastic decrease in time for model editing, especially when the number of nodes exceeds a hundred. Thus, a reenterable model is a valuable complement to possible formal models that allows us to obtain express-evaluations of characteristics in a rather short time and with an acceptable level of adequacy.
Juanjuan Li, Xiaolong Liang, Rui Qin, Fei–Yue Wang
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) have been gaining popularity in recent years due to their promise of realizing the decentralized Web 3.0. However, most DAOs rely heavily on token-centric value systems as well as allocate decision-making authority and yield-sharing rights according to the held tokens, which often lead to monopolization of power and rights. To address this issue, this paper contributes to propose a truly democratic organization model, named True Autonomous Organizations and Operations (TAOs), that does not count upon tokens and is guided by principles of contribution-based and on-demand allocation. We first discuss the design of TAOs, including their infrastructures, power structures, and value systems, and then provide a technical roadmap for implementing TAOs in the DeSci context. This research can provide a valuable guidance for the construction and application of TAOs.
Julião Braga, Francisco Regateiro, Itana Stiubiener, Juliana Cristina Braga
This work presents a manually built ontology to aggregate and knowledge systematization of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) obtained from web pages. An ontology is a formal description of knowledge as a set of concepts within a domain and the relationships between them, providing a common vocabulary for researchers to share information. Ontology construction from text involves analyzing collected text, identifying relevant terms and concepts, and representing the ontology using representation languages such as OWL, RDF, or RDFS. Manual ontology construction can be performed using applications such as Protege. This work describes the methodology used, how to use the ontology created through Protege using SPARQL, and presents future work proposals, including creating the same ontology using Deep Learning from Machine Learning techniques.
In a distributed peer-to-peer network, blockchain technology enables the secure transmission of digital assets.This is done based on intellectual agreement capabilities.Indeed, blockchain world has developed into a tool for managing transversal processes on an unbiased platform.Process mining has evolved as a well-known toolkit for comprehending different organization processes.Recently, researchers developed strategies for resolving the issue of collecting reliable data gathered from blockchains in order to improve the examination of blockchain applications employing process mining.There is yet to be a clear assessment of the utility of process mining on public blockchain event logs.In this paper, we will validate the applicability of process mining on public blockchain event logs by treating ChickenHunt data set.ChickenHunt is a competitive game that is operated as a Decentralized application on Ethereum blockchain network.
Distributed ledger technologies (DLT) usage is currently limited to a single platform as they do not have design-based interoperability capabilities. In general, it's challenging for a DLT to communicate with another one. Although several DLT solutions have been proposed and applied in specific application areas, building a general-purpose interoperability solution for any DLT remains a challenge. In previous work, we proposed a tailor-made interoperability solution between Hyperledger Fabric and Corda. This paper extends that work to enable interoperability between Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum. The main contribution of this paper is to provide a new approach to enable interoperability between these two DLT. The approach follows a new request-response interaction model and future payments to enable the payments of services. A prototype was developed and evaluated through a case scenario, performance tests and cost analysis. Performance tests showed bottlenecks under heavy load scenarios due to Ethereum's design. Costs analysis showed that the approach is suitable for purchasing high-priced services. These promising results constitute a step forward in developing a general-purpose solution for DLT interoperability.
Wensheng Gan, Zhenqiang Ye, Shicheng Wan, Philip S. Yu
With the rapid growth of the Internet, human daily life has become deeply bound to the Internet. To take advantage of massive amounts of data and information on the internet, the Web architecture is continuously being reinvented and upgraded. From the static informative characteristics of Web 1.0 to the dynamic interactive features of Web 2.0, scholars and engineers have worked hard to make the internet world more open, inclusive, and equal. Indeed, the next generation of Web evolution (i.e., Web 3.0) is already coming and shaping our lives. Web 3.0 is a decentralized Web architecture that is more intelligent and safer than before. The risks and ruin posed by monopolists or criminals will be greatly reduced by a complete reconstruction of the Internet and IT infrastructure. In a word, Web 3.0 is capable of addressing web data ownership according to distributed technology. It will optimize the internet world from the perspectives of economy, culture, and technology. Then it promotes novel content production methods, organizational structures, and economic forms. However, Web 3.0 is not mature and is now being disputed. Herein, this paper presents a comprehensive survey of Web 3.0, with a focus on current technologies, challenges, opportunities, and outlook. This article first introduces a brief overview of the history of World Wide Web as well as several differences among Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, and Web3. Then, some technical implementations of Web 3.0 are illustrated in detail. We discuss the revolution and benefits that Web 3.0 brings. Finally, we explore several challenges and issues in this promising area.
Tianhong Xiong, Shangqing Feng, Maolin Pan, Yang Yu
Summary Currently, inter‐organizational process collaboration (IOPC) has been widely used in the design and development of distributed systems that support business process execution. Blockchain‐based IOPC can establish trusted data sharing among participants, attracting more and more attention. The core of such study is to translate the graphical model (e.g., BPMN) into program code called smart contract that can be executed in the blockchain environment. In this context, a proper smart contract plays a vital role in the correct implementation of block‐chain‐based IOPC. In fact, the quality of graphical model affects the smart contract generation. Problematic models (e.g., deadlock) will result in incorrect contracts (causing unexpected behaviors). To avoid this undesired implementation, this article explores to generate smart contracts by using the verified formal model as input instead of graphical model. Specifically, we introduce a prototype framework that supports the automatic generation of smart contracts, providing an end‐to‐end solution from modeling, verification, translation to implementation. One of the cores of this framework is to provide a CSP#‐based formalization for the BPMN collaboration model from the perspective of message interaction. This formalization provides precise execution semantics and model verification for graphical models, and a verified formal model for smart contract generation. Another novelty is that it introduces a syntax tree‐based translation algorithm to directly map the formal model into a smart contract. The required formalism, verification, and translation techniques are transparent to users without imposing additional burdens. Finally, a set of experiments shows the effectiveness of the framework.
We are currently witnessing the proliferation of blockchain environments to support a wide spectrum of corporate applications through the use of smart contracts. It is of no surprise that smart contract programming language technology constantly evolves to include not only specialized languages such as Solidity, but also general purpose languages such as GoLang and JavaScript. Furthermore, blockchain technology imposes unique challenges related to the monetary cost of deploying smart contracts, and handling roll-back issues when a smart contract fails. It is therefore evident that the complexity of systems involving smart contracts will only increase over time thus making the maintenance and evolution of such systems a very challenging task. One solution to these problems is to approach the implementation and deployment of such systems in a disciplined and automated way. In this paper, we propose a model-driven approach where the structure and inter-dependencies of smart contract, as well as stakeholder objectives, are denoted by extended goal models which can then be transformed to yield Solidity code that conforms with those models. More specifically, we present first a Domain Specific Language (DSL) to denote extended goal models and second, a transformation process which allows for the Abstract Syntax Trees of such a DSL program to be transformed into Solidity smart contact source code. The transformation process ensures that the generated smart contract skeleton code yields a system that is conformant with the model, which serves as a specification of said system so that subsequent analysis, understanding, and maintenance will be easier to achieve.
Architectural design contexts contain a set of factors that greatly influence software application development. Among them, organizational design contexts consist of high-level company concerns and how it is structured, for example, stakeholders and development schedules heavily impacting design considerations. The Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), as a vital concept in the Web3 space, represents an organization constructed by automatically executed rules, such as via smart contracts, holding features of the permissionless committee, transparent proposals, and fair contribution by participated stakeholders. In this work, we conduct a systematic literature review of existing DAO literature to summarize its structural features, benefits and challenges, and potential development directions in the context of Web3 applications.
Research on blockchains addresses multiple issues, with one being the automated creation of smart contracts. Developing smart contract methods is more difficult than mainstream software development as the underlying blockchain infrastructure poses additional complexity. We report on a new approach to developing smart contracts with the objective of automating the process to increase developer efficiency and reduce the risk of errors introduced by software developers. To support industry adoption, we use Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) modeling to describe an application while targeting applications in the trade vertical. We describe a system that transforms a BPMN model into a multi-modal model that combines Discrete Event (DE) modeling for concurrency with Hierarchical State Machines (HSMs) to represent application functionality. Then, further transformations are used to transform the DE-HSM model into methods in smart contracts. The system lets the modeler decide which of the independent patterns should be transformed into methods of a separate smart contract that is deployed on a sidechain for the purpose of (i) reducing processing costs and/or (ii) providing privacy so that other participants in the smart contract do not have visibility into the processing of the pattern. We also briefly describe a proof-of-concept tool we built to demonstrate the feasibility of our approach.
Abstract An emerging approach that addresses data heterogeneity challenges is the mediator-based architecture allowing transparent access to the data stored in many sources. Due to the growing diversity of data sources, the data integration process becomes a performance and administrative bottleneck. When dealing with decentralized heterogeneous data sources, the mediator-based technique is typically used to integrate the data. It describes a collection of applications that follow a number of data sources. The importance of analyzing and synthesizing the collected data has lately increased for academics researching autonomous and heterogeneous software systems. This study uses a mediator-based information integration model to improve pattern-based reasoning and overcome grammatical problems with integrating diverse information from web sources (IATs). The main goal of this study is to improve the mediator design for usage in the mediator-based information integration paradigm in order to address the problems caused by syntactic heterogeneity. Using our recommended methodology and enhancement strategy, the proposed technique would choose the pertinent domain from a variety of vendor-related data sources and antiquated file systems and deliver the necessary information set from heterogeneous data sources. Our suggested extended design functions well in the online bookstore as well, where there are several data sources and antiquated file systems. Future applications of this research include providing a thorough syntactic method that must be used to integrate data from various sources within the same organization into any Executive Support System (ESS).
Buyers have a lot of options these days with the rapid advent of modern centralized marketplaces which harness the internet as their main infrastructure. While convenience is provided in abundance, some major concerns with these platforms are the lack of data privacy, its power to obstruct vendors/merchants and the expenses for arbitrary reasons related with posting and selling of the items. In this work, the framework for an application is put forward by us, which benefits off of the Ethereum blockchain to address these issues. After the abstract is read by the user through the medium of a web interface, their input is sent to the Ethereum network using the web3.js API. Resolution of these security issues can be attempted by leveraging the blockchain technology and executing a DApp(Decentralized application) which will act as a virtual commercial centre wherein consumers will actually be able to trade digital resources or NFT's utilizing crypto tokens.
Abstract Business Processes (BPs) are commonly used by organizations to describe their goals. However, the existent decentralization found in many organizations forces them to build such BPs by coordinating distributed and fragmented BPs. Within this context, microservices arise as a very interesting and convenient way to address the implementation of such processes due to their low coupling characteristic. In this case, the coordination of such fragmented BPs is usually achieved by means of event-based choreographies. One of the main challenges to be faced by choreographies is their evolution due to the complexity that introduces the need of integrating changes among autonomous and independent partners. We face the challenge of evolving a microservice composition that is globally defined in a BPMN model but executed through a choreography of BPMN fragments. We introduce a protocol to manage the propagation of a change done by one microservice to be integrated into both the BPMN fragments of the rest of the microservices and the global BPMN model. This protocol also supports the negotiation among participants and the automatic suggestion of model adaptations to maintain the functional integrity of the composition. These suggestions are supported by a catalogue of adaptation rules that precisely characterize every possible change and propose actions to be considered by the affected microservices. All the evolution process is done at the modelling level, without managing hard-coded implementations. We have developed specific tools to facilitate the practical adoption of this protocol, and we have validated our work in an experiment with users. We can conclude that the proposed approach is effective to evolve microservice compositions implemented as event-based choreography of BPMN fragments from the local perspective of one partner.
Mario Scrocca, Marco Comerio, Alessio Carenini, Irene Celino
The blockchain technology provides integrity and reliability of the information, thus offering a suitable solution to guarantee trustability in a multi-stakeholder scenario that involves actors defining business agreements. The Ride2Rail project investigated the use of the blockchain to record as smart contracts the agreements between different stakeholders defined in a multimodal transportation domain. Modelling an ontology to represent the smart contracts enables the possibility of having a machine-readable and interoperable representation of the agreements. On one hand, the underlying blockchain ensures trust in the execution of the contracts, on the other hand, their ontological representation facilitates the retrieval of information within the ecosystem. The paper describes the development of the Ride2Rail Ontology for Agreements to showcase how the concept of an ontological smart contract, defined in the OASIS ontology, can be applied to a specific domain. The usage of the designed ontology is discussed by describing the modelling as ontological smart contracts of business agreements defined in a ride-sharing scenario.
The analysis of existing research in the field of business processes automation is carried out. Modern business process automation methods involve the direct developers participation. Our proposed approach will allow domain experts to develop and manage smart contracts for business processes without the help of programmers. The methods of automating the smart contracts creation using semantic modeling are described. Methods of automation of complex processes with hierarchical nesting are proposed. A methodological approach to automating the smart contracts development using situation models is described. The operation scheme of the software system for the business processes formalization by constructing situation models is presented. The use of predicates ontological homomorphism to create smart contract templates is described. Methods of generating smart contracts in the sDSL language based on the described partial models are proposed. Examples of translating the business processes representation using situation models into smart contracts in the sDSL language are given. The interaction of several smart contracts using situation models with each other is described.
In this paper we explore a context of application of Cob, a recently introduced Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus protocol. Cob proves to be a leaderless consensus protocol which carries out the consensus process in parallel on each component of a list of events to be observed and recorded. We show how Cob can be used to define a consensus layer for scalable and sustainable blockchains. This layer is used to design consensus protocols based on sharding as a mean to achieve scalability, and on the fragmentation of time in time-slots (which get assigned to nodes that are instructed to create new blocks) as a mean to reduce the amount of computation and communication necessary for the maintenance of the distributed ledger. We explain why Cob is a viable candidate to implement such consensus layer through the introduction of an auxiliary blockchain that we name Synchronization Chain.
Piero Fraternali, Sergio Luis Herrera González, Matteo Frigerio, Mattia Righetti
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is one of the most durable results of virtual currencies, which goes beyond the financial sector and impacts business applications in general. Developers can empower their solutions with DLT capabilities to attain such benefits as decentralization, transparency, non-repudiability of actions and security and immutability of data assets, to the price of integrating a distributed ledger framework into their software architecture. Model-Driven Development (MDD) is the discipline that advocates the use of abstract models and of code generation to reduce the application development and integration effort by delegating repetitive coding to an automated model-to-code transformation engine. In this paper, we explore the suitability of MDD to support the development of hybrid applications that integrate centralized database and distributed ledger architectures and describe a prototypical tool capable of generating the implementation artefacts starting from a high-level model of the application and its architecture.