EdgeShare: A blockchain-based edge data-sharing framework for Industrial Internet of Things

Abstract

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is facing significant scalability and security challenges in sharing massive device data across heterogeneous network domains. Traditional cloud-based sharing solutions for IIoT applications that are getting closer to devices are uneconomical and inefficient because of their centralized architecture. We propose a blockchain-based data-sharing framework called EdgeShare for edge data-sharing services among heterogeneous network domains by introducing a two-layer overlay network topology and an edge computing paradigm that can dramatically alleviate system pressure and reduce communication delays to improve data-sharing efficiency. Under such framework, a novel smart contract is designed to construct access control strategies with dissimilar granularities to achieve different levels of data access control in an undeniable and automated manner. All IIoT data-sharing activities are recorded in a blockchain for secured transaction logging and auditing. We implement an EdgeShare prototype and conduct extensive experiments and analyses to evaluate the feasibility of our proposals. In contrast with centralized sharing methods, results demonstrate that the proposed framework can effectively improve the reliability, efficiency, and security of massive data sharing while introducing reasonable and acceptable overheads.