Blockchain-based solutions for cloud computing: A survey

Blockchain is a disruptive technology applied by academia and industry in a broad spectrum of applications ranging from cryptocurrency, financial services, IoT, 5G, risk management to public and social services. On the other hand, cloud computing is spearheading the Internet revolution and rapidly becomes the hottest topic in IT. However, cloud computing inherently suffers from centralization, lack of transparency and trust. Blockchain, with its innovative features like decentralization and immutability, adds trustworthiness and transparency to cloud computing. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of Blockchain-based cloud services literature published over the period 2008-21. This survey focuses on the technical fusion of Blockchain and cloud computing and investigates the recent advances in the field of Blockchain-based cloud computing. In particular, we classify the literature into three categories: (1) Blockchain-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service (2) Blockchainbased Platform-as-a-Service and (3) Blockchain-based Software-as-a-Service. We start by identifying a set of characteristics of Blockchain and their potential benefits to cloud computing. Then, we present our research methodology and a brief introduction of essential backgrounds. Later, we present state-of-the-art works in Blockchain-based storage-as-a-service, resource management, computation-as-a-service, data aggregation-as-aservice, microservice-as-a-service and VNF-as-a-service. We conclude the paper with the current challenges in Blockchain-based cloud computing, their potential challenges and future research directions. We believe our survey will provide a comprehensive view of the state-of-the-art Blockchain-based cloud services and facilitate reengineering the cloud data centres in the future.

Automated summary

The paper surveys literature on Blockchain-based cloud services and explores how Blockchain technology enhances reliability and transparency in cloud computing. The literature is classified into three categories, investigating various areas including Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, and Software-as-a-Service. The authors believe this survey will aid in reengineering cloud data centers in the future.