An Automated Customization and Performance Profiling Framework for Permissioned Blockchains in a Virtualized Environment

The permissioned blockchains have demonstrated

their potential to provide trustworthy and security services in various

industrial scenarios, especially in the Cloud-based virtualized

environments. To customize the configuration of a blockchain

application, an operator needs the performance characteristics

of a blockchain network in different Cloud environments. However,

manually profiling the performance characteristics of a

blockchain network is very time-consuming. Therefore, in this

paper, we propose a BlockchaIn-infRAstructure CustomIzation

and Auto-profiLing (BIRACIAL) framework to automate the

whole process of blockchain deployment and performance profiling.

Based on the profile and performance requirements of a

blockchain application, the framework aims to plan the virtual

infrastructure for permissioned blockchain, to automate the

provision of the required infrastructure, to deploy the customized

permissioned blockchain, and to enable continuous monitoring

of blockchain performance. Our evaluation results show that

the proposed framework can achieve automated deployment

of different permissioned blockchain networks under certain

overheads. The performance profiling results can be used to

compare and select the appropriate blockchain platforms and

consensus algorithms.