uBaaS: A unified blockchain as a service platform

• Published in: Future generation computer systems Vol. 101; pp. 564 - 575
• Main Authors: Lu, Qinghua, Xu, Xiwei, Liu, Yue, Weber, Ingo, Zhu, Liming, Zhang, Weishan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.12.2019
• Subjects: Architecture; Blockchain; Blockchain as a service; Deployment; Design patterns; Deployment; Design patterns; Architecture; Blockchain as a service; Blockchain
• ISSN: 0167-739X; 1872-7115
• DOI: 10.1016/j.future.2019.05.051

Blockchain is an innovative distributed ledger technology which has attracted a wide range of interests for building the next generation of applications to address lack-of-trust issues in business. Blockchain as a service (BaaS) is a promising solution to improve the productivity of blockchain application development. However, existing BaaS deployment solutions are mostly vendor-locked: they are either bound to a cloud provider or a blockchain platform. In addition to deployment, design and implementation of blockchain-based applications is a hard task requiring deep expertise. Therefore, this paper presents a unified blockchain as a service platform (uBaaS) to support both design and deployment of blockchain-based applications. The services in uBaaS include deployment as a service, design pattern as a service and auxiliary services. In uBaaS, deployment as a service is platform agnostic, which can avoid lock-in to specific cloud platforms, while design pattern as a service applies design patterns for data management and smart contract design to address the scalability and security issues of blockchain. The proposed solutions are evaluated using a real-world quality tracing use case in terms of feasibility and scalability.