Auction based cost‐efficient resource allocation by utilizing blockchain in fog computing

Abstract

AbstractIn the IoT‐cloud environment, the growing amount of spawn data may limit performance in terms of communication latency, network traffic, processing power, and energy usage. The introduction of fog computing extends the cloud services nearer to the edge of the network. Since these lightweight fog servers are not able to fulfill the demand of every user node and process each offloaded task due to the limited computation resources. Accordingly, an efficient resource management scheme is required to proficiently handle fog resources. The profit‐driven nature of both the fog service providers and user nodes increases the possibility of malicious activity while resource trading for their advantages or to privilege a bunch of devices. In this article, we designed a trusted and fair incentive mechanism that encourages buyers and sellers to trade by leveraging the benefits of blockchain and smart contracts. Especially, a combinatorial double auction employed market model is proposed which satisfies different economical properties such as individual rationality, budget balance, and truthfulness. Blockchain‐driven decentralized fog environments prevent the tampering of trade‐related information by the malicious nodes. Simulation results indicate that the proposed combinatorial double auction significantly improves the network utilization by improved winner determination and pricing model.