Trust management in a blockchain based fog computing platform with trustless smart oracles

Abstract Trust is a crucial aspect when Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) have to rely on resources and services under ownership of various entities, such as in the case of Edge, Fog and Cloud computing. The DECENTER’s Fog Computing Platform is developed to support Big Data pipelines, which start from the Internet of Things (IoT), such as cameras that provide video-streams for subsequent analysis. It is used to implement Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms across the Edge-Fog-Cloud computing continuum which provide benefits to applications, including high Quality of Service (QoS), improved privacy and security, lower operational costs and similar. In this article, we present a trust management architecture for DECENTER that relies on the use of blockchain-based Smart Contracts (SCs) and a specifically designed trustless Smart Oracle. The architecture is implemented on Ethereum ledger (testnet) and a use case of trust management are used for illustration. They include trust management for cameras, QoS aspects of Fog nodes, and Cloud storage, and is used to present benefits for establishing trust relationships among entities, services and stakeholders, of the platform.