Integration Adapter Architecture for Food Traceability Blockchain

TL;DR

This paper introduces a modular adapter architecture that simplifies integrating legacy enterprise systems with permissioned blockchains, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, demonstrated through a real-world fruit supply chain pilot.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, modular adapter architecture that facilitates seamless blockchain integration for enterprises with limited technical resources.

Findings

Successful pilot deployment in a fruit supply chain

Minimal workflow disruption during integration

Enhanced operational transparency through runtime metrics

Abstract

Enterprise adoption of permissioned blockchains remains limited due to the complexity and cost of integrating legacy systems. We present a modular adapter architecture that bridges enterprise applications with blockchain networks, designed to support small and medium-sized enterprises with limited technical resources. The architecture provides five key modules: (1) configurable data extractors supporting diverse interfaces such as APIs and file uploads, (2) data transformers that can convert to standard formats, (3) messaging middleware to ensure operations can tolerate lack of connectivity and traffic spikes, (4) blockchain loader to commit transactions to the blockchain, and (5) status visibility to collect and expose runtime metrics that support operational transparency. We validated the adapters through a pilot deployment in a real-world fruit supply chain, involving three distinct enterprises. The pilot achieved blockchain integration with minimal workflow disruption, demonstrating the usefulness of these adapters for practical interoperability of existing systems with the blockchain.