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Integration of IoT Equipment as Transactional Endorsing Peers over a Hyperledger-Fabric Blockchain Network: Feasibility Study

Abstract:

Internet of Things (IoT) experiences exponential growth in research and industry fields; the usefulness provided by IoT extends from critical applications such as intelligent transport systems and e-health to business-related applications such as banking and logistics. At the same time, faces privacy and security vulnerabilities becoming target of cyber-attacks, being necessary to mitigate them. Conventional security and privacy approaches tend not to be applicable for IoT, due to its decentralized topology and limited resources on its devices. Blockchain appears as a possible solution to the intrinsic security deficiency in IoT environments, since it has demonstrated its applicability in security and privacy fields over end-to-end networks with similar topologies as the ones used in IoT, thanks to its Defense-in-Depth approach is ideal for critical environments. Blockchain is based on a ledger with capability to preserve an immutable record of all chronological ordered transactions processed in network, subsequently shared with members of the network. However, this technology requires high computational performance and high bandwidth, generating delays that are not found in most IoT applications. This document examines the feasibility of implementing Blockchain considering IoT devices as endorsing peers and not only as users that invoke transactions. The results of proof of concept, bandwidth and performance measurements in several transactional tests are presented, applying the “Design Science Research” methodology. As a result, a high-level model for the implementation of IoT networks with Blockchain is proposed.