Throughput Of Blockchain Research Articles

Implementing a blockchain-based local energy market: Insights on communication and scalability

Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy markets are gaining interest in the energy sector as a means to increase the share of decentralised energy resources (DER), thus fostering a clean, resilient and decentralised supply of energy. Various reports have touted P2P energy markets as ideal use case for blockchain-technology, as it offers advantages such as fault-tolerant operation, trust delegation, immutability, transparency, resilience, and automation. However, relatively little is known about the influence of hardware and communication infrastructure limitations on blockchain systems in real-life applications. In this article, we demonstrate the implementation of a real-world blockchain managed microgrid in Walenstadt, Switzerland. The 37 participating households are equipped with 75 special smart-metres that include single board computers (SBC) that run their own, application-specific private blockchain. Using the field-test setup, we provide an empirical evaluation of the feasibility of a Byzantine fault tolerant blockchain system. Furthermore, we artificially throttle bandwidth between nodes to simulate how the bandwidth of communication infrastructure impacts its performance. We find that communication networks with a bandwidth smaller than 1000 kbit/s – which includes WPAN, LoRa, narrowband IoT, and narrowband PLC – lead to insufficient throughput of the operation of a blockchain-managed microgrid. While larger numbers of validators may provide higher decentralisation and fault-tolerant operation, they considerably reduce throughput. The results from the field-test in the Walenstadt microgrid show that the blockchain running on the smart-metre SBCs can provide a maximum throughput of 10 transactions per second. The blockchain throughput halts almost entirely if the system is run by more than 40 validators. Based on the field test, we provide simplified guidelines for utilities or grid operators interested in implementing local P2P markets based on BFT systems.

Performance Optimization for Blockchain-Enabled Distributed Network Function Virtualization Management and Orchestration

Distributed network function virtualization management and orchestration (NFV-MANO) offers a flexible way to manage and orchestrate diversified network services in large-scale Internet of vehicles (IoV). However, it is challenging to manage different services and resources in distributed NFV due to the difficulties of reliable message synchronization among multiple MANO systems. Recently, blockchain technology has emerged to solve the trust and security problems for the interconnections of multiple MANO systems. Moreover, multi-access edge computing (MEC) has become a prospective paradigm shift from the centralized cloud due to its advantages of completing tasks near users. In this work, we propose a blockchain-enabled distributed NFV framework to reach consensus among multiple MANO systems where the computation tasks of the blockchain are processed with MEC. The consensus procedures of MANO systems and blockchain nodes are explained in detail and the representation of the blockchain throughput is given. The blockchain throughput is the number of transactions a blockchain system can handle per second, which is an important evaluation indicator for the performance of a blockchain system. We make decisions for the primary node selection, the MANO system selection and the edge server selection for reaching consensus. Moreover, the blockchain throughput, the processing delay of computation tasks of blockchain and operational costs are jointly considered in the problem formulation. A dueling deep reinforcement learning approach is applied to solve this problem. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

A Novel Blockchain Framework for Industrial IoT Edge Computing.

With the rapid development of industrial internet of thing (IIoT), the distributed topology of IIoT and resource constraints of edge computing conduct new challenges to traditional data storage, transmission, and security protection. A distributed trust and allocated ledger of blockchain technology are suitable for the distributed IIoT, which also becomes an effective method for edge computing applications. This paper proposes a resource constrained Layered Lightweight Blockchain Framework (LLBF) and implementation mechanism. The framework consists of a resource constrained layer (RCL) and a resource extended layer (REL) blockchain used in IIoT. We redesign the block structure and size to suit to IIoT edge computing devices. A lightweight consensus algorithm and a dynamic trust right algorithm is developed to improve the throughput of blockchain and reduce the number of transactions validated in new blocks respectively. Through a high throughput management to guarantee the transaction load balance of blockchain. Finally, we conducted kinds of blockchain simulation and performance experiments, the outcome indicated that the method have a good performance in IIoT edge application.

LSB: A Lightweight Scalable Blockchain for IoT security and anonymity

In recent years, Blockchain has attracted tremendous attention due to its salient features including auditability, immutability, security, and anonymity. Resulting from these salient features, blockchain has been applied in multiple non-monetary applications including the Internet of Things (IoT). However, blockchain is computationally expensive, has limited scalability and incurs significant bandwidth overheads and delays which are not suited for most IoT applications. In this paper, we propose a Lightweight Scalable blockchain (LSB) that is optimized for IoT requirements while also providing end-to-end security. Our blockchain instantiation achieves decentralization by forming an overlay network where high resource devices jointly manage the blockchain. The overlay is organized as distinct clusters to reduce overheads and the cluster heads are responsible for managing the public blockchain. We propose a Distributed Time-based Consensus algorithm (DTC) which reduces the mining processing overhead and delay. Distributed trust approach is employed by the cluster heads to progressively reduce the processing overhead for verifying new blocks. LSB incorporates a Distributed Throughput Management (DTM) algorithm which ensures that the blockchain throughput does not significantly deviate from the cumulative transaction load in the network. We explore our approach in a smart home setting as a representative example for broader IoT applications. Qualitative arguments demonstrate that our approach is resilient to several security attacks. Extensive simulations show that packet overhead and delay are decreased and blockchain scalability is increased compared to relevant baselines.