A Rapid-Prototyping Environment for Integrated Edge/Fog-DLT Systems

Edge and fog computing are models to develop internet of things (IoT) solutions with low latency, mobility, location awareness and afford the processing of a large amount of data. Distributed ledger technologies (DLT), such as blockchain, improve IoT systems interoperability by enabling a more secure and decentralized way to share data. Recent research has pointed out that integrating current paradigms such as edge/fog and DLT/blockchain allows the development of responsive and secure IoT solutions. Despite recent advances in edge/fog platforms, the current modeling tools are adapted to evaluate edge/fog solutions in limited environments with no DLT/blockchain support. This work presents an extensible toolset integration to enable edge/fog-based DLT testbeds in virtualized environments. The proposed architecture allows the deployment and testing of real-world Edge/Fog-DLT solutions in a scalable way. A case study to demonstrate the emulation and benefits of Edge/Fog-DLT systems is presented. Furthermore, future developments and research directions are discussed.