A Blockchain-based Approach for Assessing Compliance with SLA-guaranteed IoT Services

TL;DR

This paper introduces a blockchain-based system to verify SLA compliance in IoT services, aiming to improve trust and enforcement mechanisms beyond traditional methods.

Contribution

It proposes a novel blockchain approach for SLA compliance assessment and enforcement, validated through diagnostic accuracy and benchmarking of Hyperledger Fabric.

Findings

Blockchain enhances SLA breach detection reliability

Hyperledger Fabric shows acceptable latency for IoT SLA enforcement

The approach improves trustworthiness in SLA management

Abstract

Within cloud-based internet of things (IoT) applications, typically cloud providers employ Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to ensure the quality of their provisioned services. Similar to any other contractual method, an SLA is not immune to breaches. Ideally, an SLA stipulates consequences (e.g. penalties) imposed on cloud providers when they fail to conform to SLA terms. The current practice assumes trust in service providers to acknowledge SLA breach incidents and executing associated consequences. Recently, the Blockchain paradigm has introduced compelling capabilities that may enable us to address SLA enforcement more elegantly. This paper proposes and implements a blockchain-based approach for assessing SLA compliance and enforcing consequences. It employs a diagnostic accuracy method for validating the dependability of the proposed solution. The paper also benchmarks Hyperledger Fabric to investigate its feasibility as an underlying blockchain infrastructure concerning latency and transaction success/fail rates.