Accepted Manuscript

Blockchain based hybrid network architecture for the smart city

Pradip Kumar Sharma, Jong Hyuk Park

PII: S0167-739X(18)30431-X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2018.04.060
Reference: FUTURE 4138

To appear in: Future Generation Computer Systems

Received date : 26 February 2018

Revised date : 19 April 2018
Accepted date : 19 April 2018

Please cite this article as: P.K. Sharma, J.H. Park, Blockchain based hybrid network architecture for
the smart city, Future Generation Computer Systems (2018),
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2018.04.060

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 Blockchain based Hybrid Network
Architecture for the Smart City
Pradip Kumar Sharma, and Jong Hyuk Park*
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology,
(SeoulTech) Seoul 01811, Korea
Email id: {pradip, jhpark1}@seoultech.ac.kr

Abstract: Recently, the concept of "Smart Cities" has developed considerably with the rise and development of the
Internet of Things as new form of sustainable development. Smart cities are based on autonomous and distributed
infrastructure that includes intelligent information processing and control systems, heterogeneous network
infrastructure, and ubiquitous sensing involving millions of information sources. Due to the continued growth of
data volume and number of connected IoT devices, however, issues such as high latency, bandwidth bottlenecks,
security and privacy, and scalability arise in the current smart city network architecture. Designing an efficient,
secure, and scalable distributed architecture by bringing computational and storage resources closer to endpoints is
needed to address the limitations of today's smart city network. In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid network
architecture for the smart city by leveraging the strength of emerging Software Defined Networking and blockchain
technologies. To achieve efficiency and address the current limitations, our architecture is divided into two parts:
core network and edge network. Through the design of a hybrid architecture, our proposed architecture inherits the
strength of both centralized and distributed network architectures. We also propose a Proof-of-Work scheme in our
model to ensure security and privacy. To evaluate the feasibility and performance of our proposed model, we
simulate our model and evaluate it based on various performance metrics. The result of the evaluation shows the
effectiveness of our proposed model.

Keywords- Internet of Things, Smart City, Blockchain, Software Defined Networking

1. Introduction

The Internet of Things (IoT) envisions and offers a promising future for traditional Internet industries and
societies, and the realization of smart cities is tightly bound to the IoT outlook. By deploying low-cost sensors and
various types of smart objects to collect data in public infrastructure, a smart city increases operational efficiency,
shares information with the public, and improves the quality of life, cost of living, and government services as well
as the environment [1] [2] [3]. Nowadays, the biggest wave of urbanization around the world and people are moving
toward cities because of economy growth and social transformation. Recently, the United Nations has predicted that
86% of developed countries and 64% of the developing countries will be urbanized by 2050 [4]. Gartner’s report
forecast that 30% of smart cities’ healthcare applications will have robotics and smart machines, and 10% of smart
cities will use streetlamps as the backbone for a network of smart cities by 2020 [5]. Such implies that billions of
devices and systems will be integrated in the future, ranging from end-user devices to smart transportation,
healthcare, industry, buildings, and environments. Thus, the de facto expectation for a network of smart cities is to
analyze a huge volume of data generated by IoT devices, increase security and privacy, realize optimal use of
network bandwidth to avoid congestion, support real-time applications, etc.
Recently, blockchain technology has attracted the attention of many stakeholders in many industries such as
agriculture, cryptocurrency, supply chain, etc. IoT technology and blockchain technology are felt throughout our
daily lives. The Gartner report predicts that $ 3.1 trillion in business value will be added by 2030 [6]. By taking
advantage of the blockchain technique in the IoT network, we can offer new ways to automate business processes
without the need for costly and complex centralized IT infrastructure. This will help us build trust between devices
and users, reduce the risk of falsification and cost, eliminate middlemen, and shorten the transaction settlement time.
To simplify business processes, realize significant cost savings, and improve the user experience, blockchain-based
IoT solutions are ideally suited. On the other hand, Software Defined Networking (SDN) is gaining prominence
among technologies for its disruptive quality. As an emerging network architecture, it decouples control of the

*Corresponding Author: Jong Hyuk Park (SeoulTech, Korea)

 
network from traditional hardware devices. SDN based solutions can be useful in meeting requirements such as
scalability and seamless, efficient, and cost-effective deployment in the IoT network architecture [7].
Based on the analysis above, designing a new network architecture is needed to address the current limitations of
the smart city network architecture by leveraging the strength of emerging SDN and blockchain technologies. In this
paper, we propose a novel hybrid architecture for the smart city network using SDN and blockchain techniques to
address these problems. We discuss the current architectural challenges that we are facing to realize a sustainable
smart city network. We introduce the Argon2 based Proof-of-work (PoW) scheme into our proposed architecture for
a securely distributed smart city network. We also explain the mining process of our proposed architecture at the
core network. To evaluate the feasibility and performance overhead of the proposed model, experimental analysis is
performed based on different parameters.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: In Section 2, we discuss the architectural challenges in the smart
city network, brief overview of Proof-of-Work and Argon2, and blockchain and IoT related works; in Section 3, we
present our proposed model to address the current limitations of the smart city network; in Section 4, we evaluate
the feasibility and performance of our proposed model based on different performance metrics; finally, we present
the conclusions of our research in Section 5. 

2. Preliminaries

2.1 Architectural challenges in the Smart City

In the architectural design of the network of smart cities, the shift of the global population to cities is putting
increasing pressure on urban areas in terms of scalability, latency, network bandwidth usage, data privacy, and
security challenges. In a highly urbanized future, cities can offer the best quality of life through intelligent
transportation, smart living, smart mobility, smart energy, and smart business models to finance everything. Here,
we discuss some of the challenges faced by today’s smart city network architecture and which we need to address
for a sustainable smart city network:
Low latency and high mobility: Due to the on-demand services simultaneously requested by multiple devices at
different locations in the smart city, a set of stringent requirements -- such as low latency and high mobility -- is
introduced. Addressing these constraints introduced by smart city applications requires an effective network
architecture.
Structural scalability: Structural scalability is another challenge for the smart city network that we need to address
when designing the architecture for a sustainable smart city network. This property allows a system to grow when
needed without requiring significant changes in the network architecture.
Network bandwidth constraints: For smart city application scenarios, centralized architecture-based solutions are
not appropriate due to network bandwidth limitations. In the centralized architecture, we have to send all the data
collected by the IoT devices to the core network, which will require a huge amount of network bandwidth. To
address the bandwidth constraint and reduce bandwidth usage, we need to design an architecture that allows data
processing and analytics operations locally and sends only filtered data to the core network when needed.
Privacy and security: Due to the rapid increase in the number of devices connected to the Internet, our smart city
network infrastructure gives rise to a number of security and privacy issues and challenges. As a paradigm of
information and networks, the architecture of smart city networks should be able to protect information against
destruction, modification, disclosure, unauthorized access, and cyberattacks.
Single points of failure: The smart city network architecture can have a large number of single points of failure
due to the continued growth of heterogeneous networks, which in turn can degrade the services envisioned for the
smart city. Providing a fault-tolerant network requires a tamper-proof network architecture for smart city
applications.

2.2 Proof-of-Work and Argon2 overview

 
 
 In cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, PoW is the core part that enables large distributed public ledgers.
Due to the difficulty in forging mathematical computations, it is very hard to quantify and manage trust. Initially,
PoW was proposed to mitigate the spam problem and was later used in the Bitcoin protocol by Nakamoto [8]. In
Bitcoin, PoW was often based on the iteration of double cryptographic functions SHA-256 until the result shows a
special lucky number. PoW functions are easy to check but hard to compute [9].
As a memory hard function for password hashing and other applications, Argon2 has been selected as the winner
of the Password Hashing Competition in July 2015 [10]. Biryukov, et al. [11] proposed a memory-hard PoW
scheme using Merkle hash tree on top of the Argon2 hash chain. It consists of disk encryption and instantiation
parameters for cryptocurrency applications. On an array, the PoW schema constructs a Merkle tree and pseudo-
randomly selects a subset of leaves based on the root hash of the tree as proof of computation. In the Argon2 chain,
it is very hard for attackers to demonstrate knowledge of the proper Argon2 chain elements with their correct paths
in the Merkle tree. Thus, if some attackers attempt to cheat and store only a fraction of the Argon2 chain, they are
very likely to be caught.

2.3 Blockchain and IoT related works

In our previous work, we proposed a blockchain based distributed vehicular network architecture in the smart city
[12]. Here, we introduce the idea of building a secure and reliable distributed architecture for the transport
management system. We also propose the DistBlockNet model, a distributed mesh network architecture for IoT
using SDN and blockchain [13]. In this model, we also propose the flow rule update scheme to update securely and
verify the flow rule tables in the mesh network. Later, we extended our work and proposed a blockchain based
distributed cloud architecture enabled with SDN fog nodes for a scalable IoT network [14]. Bahga, et al. [15]
proposed a decentralized platform for Industrial IoT (IIoT) using the blockchain technique to remove the trusted
intermediary and build a peer-to-peer network. Christidis, et al. [16] reviewed the applications of blockchains and
smart contracts for IoT. Trustless medical data sharing among cloud service providers using blockchain was
proposed by Xia, et al. [17]. It provides shared medical data in cloud storage and enables auditing, data provenance,
and control for shared medical data. Li, et al. [18] proposed a secure energy trading system for IIoT.
To the best of our knowledge, research work on smart city and blockchain is very limited in literature. Majority of
the work focuses on using blockchain technology to benefit IoT either in a very general way or specific to a
problem. Designing a new architecture platform specific to the smart city network is needed, taking into account all
aspects of current and future challenges.

3. Proposed Smart city architecture

The smart city has become an emerging paradigm with the growth and advancement of IoT. It is very important to
consider the downstream processing of the network when designing the architecture of a smart city network. An
example is a smart building wherein a sensor is connected to a lighting fixture that can be part of a larger building
application. The smart building can also be part of a network of smart cities. In this case, we must consider the fact
that the data is transmitted not only locally but also to a larger network of buildings and finally to a larger network
of cities. The design of a new smart city network architecture is required to address the limitations of current
network architectures as discussed in previous sections. In this section, we propose a novel blockchain-based hybrid
network architecture for the smart city and discuss the detailed specification of the proposed model.

3.1 Architecture design overview

To achieve efficiency and scalability in trust management for the IoT network, Kim, et al. [19] introduced the
concept of globally distributed and locally centralized trust management. They envisioned the authentication and
authorization infrastructure for the IoT to be centralized locally and distributed globally. In our previous work, we
proposed DistBlockNet, a blockchain-based distributed secure SDN architecture for the IoT network [13]. Taking
advantage of the strength of the architectures proposed by Kim, et al. [19] and Sharma, et al. [13], we propose a

 
 
hybrid arrchitecture forr a scalable sm mart city netw work with bloockchain and Software Defined Networrking (SDN)
techniquees to overcomee the limitationns of the curreent smart city network archiitectures.
Fig. 1 shows
s the oveerall proposedd hybrid archittecture of the scalable smarrt city networkk. In the propoosed model,
the smartt city networkk is divided innto two differeent groups -- the core netw work and the eedge network -- using the
blockchaiin technique. The core nettwork consistss of miner noodes with higgh computatioon and storagee resources,
whereas tthe edge nodee has limited storage and ccomputation ppower. Miner nodes will bee responsible for creating
blocks annd verifying prroof-of-work. Each node is enabled with SDN controlller to achieve high agility aand security,
reduce haardware managgement cost, aand realize easse of deployment in the smaart city networrk infrastructurre. Here, we
leveragedd the security strength of thhe FS-OpenSeecurity SDN m model from ouur previous woork [20]. In our proposed
architectuure, each edge node acts as a a centralizzed server forr specific pubblic infrastruccture to provide essential
services aand achieve loocalizations. Itt stores the acccess policies and credentialls of its locallly registered eentities in its
database and helps achieve low lattency and redduce network bandwidth. T The distributedd nature of thhe proposed
model caan make the whole system m more resillient and lim mit the impact of attacks even when the t node is
comprom mised. In other words, if the edge node is ccompromised, the resulting effect must bee limited to thee local area.

Fig. 11. Proposed hyybrid networkk architecture ffor a sustainabble smart city network
n

3.2 Propoosed model woorkflow

In the smart
s city, IoT
T devices gennerate a large volume of datta and requiree real-time proocessing. In our proposed
model, eddge nodes offe fer real-time processing withh low latency and network bandwidth ussages and get deployed at
the edge of the networrk. The edge nnode has limitted storage annd computationn power and ppreprocesses tthe raw data
uploaded by the end ddevices to filteer the data andd obtain usefuul informationn. Once data is pre-processeed, the edge
node trannsfers the pre-pprocessed encrrypted data to the core netw work of the smmart city if neceessary. The m
miner node in
the core network will further analyyze the pre-proocessed data, make decisioons, validate aand verify thee PoW, and
generate bblocks. To enssure the integrrity of data stoored in the corre network, w
we use digital ssignature and store hashes
in blockchhain. These haashes in blockkchain are imm mutable, servinng as evidencee to prove thee integrity of thhe data. Fig.
2 demonsstrates the worrkflow of our proposed
p moddel, where we used the Argoon2 based hashhing scheme.

 
 
  
F
Fig. 2. Hybrid network archiitecture workfflow

3.3 PoW sscheme algoriithm

In todaay’s of cryptoocurrencies annd blockchainns, PoW is thhe core compponent. By reesolving the ddifficulty of
quantifyinng and managging trust withh hard-to-forgee mathematicaal computationns, these technniques enable large public
distributeed ledgers. In oour proposed model,
m we usee a memory-haardened PoW scheme calledd “Itsuku PoW W,” proposed
by Coelhho. et al. [21]]. The Itsuku PoW schemee is inspired by MTP-Arggon2 [22]. It fixes issues ssuch as raw
recomputtation attack, m memory savinng, pseudo-ranndom array, pparallel searchhes, and hash composabilityy attacks by
adding neew operations and modifyinng the MTP-Arrgon2 parameters to improvve memory harrdness. Table 1 shows the
pseudo-coode of the Itsuuku PoW scheeme algorithm m. The schemee takes as inpuut challenge , and difficultyy , and the
output off the search allgorithm is Ν Ν, , , , where is the nnumber of eleements in arraay, is the leength of one
search, is the variabble-size hash function,
f is tthe indexes off selected leavees, is the sellected leaves, and is the
collectivee Merkle tree proof of bothh selected leaaves and their antecedents, if any. A dettailed descripttion and the
complexity analysis of the Itsuku PoW W scheme aree given in [21]].

3.4 Mininng process at tthe core netwoork

After receiving
r a traansaction at thhe core node from the edgge node, the m mining processs is initiated. Due to the
limitationn of resources at the edge noode, we perforrm the miningg process at thhe core networrk in our proposed model.
The mininng process inccludes the folloowing steps:
Step 1: Whenever tthe edge nodde receives a new transaction request for the servicces required by the IoT
device/usser, it sends a ttransaction reqquest to each m
miner in the coore network.
Step 2: Upon receivinng the transacction request, tthe miner nodee checks and verifies
v if the transaction is modified or
not and wwhether the traansaction existts in blockchain or not. If thhe transaction is not modifieed, and it doess not exist in

 
 
blockchain, the miner node moves to Step 3. Otherwise, the miner node aborts the mining process and broadcasts the
report in the core network.
Step 3: In this step, the miner node retrieves the previous block ID and starts the PoW process. In the case of the
genesis block, the previous block ID is zero. The genesis block is the first block in the blockchain. In the PoW
process, the miner node will create a new block by iteratively hashing the information, which includes the previous
ID, created block ID, date and time stamp, verified transaction, and digital signature of the miner using the Itsuku
PoW algorithm discussed above.
Step 4: Once the block is created, to ensure the integrity of the information of all blocks in the blockchain, the
miner nodes check and verify all existing blocks.
Step 5: In the final step, the miner node sends an updated blockchain to all edge nodes and provides the requested
services to the IoT devices/users.

Table 1: PoW scheme algorithm

Input: Ι , , , and

Output: Ν, , ,
Begin
Step 1 Build challenge-dependent memory 1… as independent segments of length
Step 2 Compute the root of the Merkle hash tree
Step 3 Select nonce Ν
Step 4 Compute ‖ ‖Ι
Step 5 For 1 1 Do

⨁
Step 6 Back sweep over intermediates hashes in reverse order ‖… ‖ ⊕
Step 7 If has binary leading zeros Then
Step 8 return Ν, , ,
Step 9 Goto Step 3
End

4. Experimental analysis

In this section, we simulate our proposed model to assess the feasibility of our proposed architecture. Here, we
discuss the experimental setup and evaluation results based on various parameter metrics. All the experiments are
simulated on Intel Core i5 CPU 3.40 GHz with 16 GB memory running on Windows 10.
We simulated our proposed model on top of a private Ethereum blockchain network. We used go-Ethereum to set
up our own private blockchain network and installed a Mist browser to enable the distributed property of network
architecture. We defined our own custom genesis block and used the Argon2 hashing technique discussed in the
previous section. Ethereum testnet is used to debug and test our model. We used Mininet at each edge and miner
nodes to build SDN-enabled controller nodes. Here, we generate random data as raw IoT data and consider its
hashes as the blockchain transaction.

4.1 Performance analysis of the core network architecture

PoW is a crucial module of blockchain technology. Intrinsically, the task based on PoW must be difficult to solve
and trivial to verify. This often comes down to a random process of trying to find a solution to a puzzle like a hash
collision. Here, we observed the difficulty and hashing rate obtained in our proposed scheme. Fig. 3 shows the
difficulty and hash rate of our proposed scheme. It shows that the hash rate is continuously adjusted according to the
difficulty level in the proposed scheme.

 
 
 We also observed thhe result on thee number of trransactions peer second for tthe variable bblock size in oour proposed
model and compared itt with another system. Fig. 4 shows how tthe size of a bblock affects thhe number of transactions
per seconnd in our propposed model. The data for our simulationns are based oon actual trannsactions from m part of the
Bitcoin bblockchain [233]. The result shows that, coompared to thhe other system m, our propossed model achhieves better
performannce.
We also observed thhat the averagee block times behave in relaation to the reetargeting inteerval and comp
mpared to the
desired ooutput (i.e. 100 minutes). Fig. 5 shows thhe results of tthe average block
b time behhavior with a retargeting
interval. We can see thhat even that ffluctuates conssiderably, wheereas but our pproposed moddel seems moree robust and
closer to the desired avverage block ttime. Initially,, the wild flucctuations seem
m to be due to the major chaanges in the
hash rate..

 
Fig. 3. Hash rate vs. Difficulty

 
Fig. 4. Blocck size vs. Traansactions/Secc

 
 
4.2 Evaluuation of the peerformance ovverhead of thee proposed moodel

To evaaluate the perfformance overrhead of our proposed moddel, we observved the latenccy and througghput in our
experimenntal analysis. Here, we connsider latencyy to be the total time taken from receipt of the event by the edge
node to thhe time it sendds the desired response, trannsaction hash,, generating bllock, etc. Here, we wrote teest scripts to
trigger evvents at the eddge node as sooon as it receivves the responnse of the prevvious event. F
Fig. 6 shows thhe results of
latency oobservation in our proposedd model comp mpared with thhe public Etheereum blockchain. The minning task is
deliberateely designed too be difficult to
t compute, annd the duration for a block tto be mined ddepends on thee complexity
of the miining task. Ass shown in Figg. 6, the mediian latency acchieved in ourr simulation uusing the publiic Ethereum
blockchaiin is 21 Sec; iin our proposeed model, how wever, we achhieved a mediaan latency of 33.9 Sec, whichh is suitable
for deployment in manny smart city applications. Since we inheerited the SDN N controller security
s featurres from our
previous w work [14] [200], we skipped further securiity analysis off the SDN conttroller here.

 
Fig. 5. Average time per block

 
Fig. 66. Results of laatency in our proposed
p moddel and public Ethereum bloockchain

 
 
5. Conclusions

With IoT advancing and flourishing, a lot of data will be produced by different devices in the context of smart
cities. Achieving low latency, reducing bandwidth usage, and improving security and privacy and scalability are the
major challenges of smart cities. In this context, we have focused on these limitations by proposing a hybrid
distributed architecture for a sustainable smart city network in this paper. A memory-hardened PoW scheme was
used in our proposed model to ensure security and privacy and avoid tampering of information by attackers. The
result of the experimental analysis showed the effectiveness of our proposed model. There are still some limitations
in our proposed model such as efficient deployment of edge nodes and enabling of caching technique at the edge
nodes, so we will carry out related future work.

Acknowledgment:

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea
government (MSIP) (No 2016R1A2B4011069)
 

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 Author Biography 

Mr. Pradip Kumar Sharma is a Ph.D. scholar at the Seoul National University of Science and Technology. He
works in the Ubiquitous Computing & Security Research Group under the supervision of Prof. Jong Hyuk Park.
Prior to beginning the Ph.D. program, he worked as a software engineer at MAQ Software, India. He worked on a
variety of projects, proficient in building large-scale complex data warehouses, OLAP models and reporting
solutions that meet business objectives and align IT with business. He received his Master’s degree in Computer
Science from the Thapar University, in 2014, India. His current research interests are focused on the areas of
ubiquitous computing and security, cloud computing, SDN, SNS, and IoT. He is also reviewer of Journal of
Supercomputing (JoS), IEEE System Journal, IEEE Transaction of Industrial Informatics, IEEE Internet of Things
Journal, IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine, and IEEE Communication Magazine.

Dr. James J. (Jong Hyuk) Park received Ph.D. degrees in Graduate School of Information Security from Korea
University, Korea and Graduate School of Human Sciences from Waseda University, Japan. From December, 2002
to July, 2007, Dr. Park had been a research scientist of R&D Institute, Hanwha S&C Co., Ltd., Korea. From
September, 2007 to August, 2009, He had been a professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Kyungnam University, Korea. He is now a professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and
Department of Interdisciplinary Bio IT Materials, Seoul National University of Science and Technology
(SeoulTech), Korea. Dr. Park has published about 200 research papers in international journals and conferences. He
has been serving as chair, program committee, or organizing committee chair for many international conferences
and workshops. He is a steering chair of international conferences – MUE, FutureTech, CSA, CUTE, UCAWSN,
World IT Congress-Jeju. He is editor-in-chief of Human-centric Computing and Information Sciences (HCIS) by
Springer, The Journal of Information Processing Systems (JIPS) by KIPS, and Journal of Convergence (JoC) by
KIPS CSWRG. He is Associate Editor / Editor of 14 international journals including JoS, JNCA, SCN, CJ, and so
on. In addition, he has been serving as a Guest Editor for international journals by some publishers: Springer,
Elsevier, John Wiley, Oxford Univ. press, Emerald, Inderscience, MDPI. He got the best paper awards from ISA-08
and ITCS-11 conferences and the outstanding leadership awards from IEEE HPCC-09, ICA3PP-10, IEE ISPA-11,
PDCAT-11, IEEE AINA-15. Furthermore, he got the outstanding research awards from the SeoulTech, 2014. His
research interests include IoT, Human-centric Ubiquitous Computing, Information Security, Digital Forensics,
Vehicular Cloud Computing, Multimedia Computing, etc. He is a member of the IEEE, IEEE Computer Society,
KIPS, and KMMS.

 
 Author Photto 

Mrr. Pradip Kum

mar Sharma

D
Dr. James J. (Joong Hyuk) Parrk

 
 Highlights

 We discuss the architectural challenges in the smart city network.

 We propose a novel hybrid architecture for the smart city network using SDN and blockchain techniques.
 We introduce the PoW scheme for a securely distributed smart city network.