Blockchain for Network Service Orchestration: Trust and Adoption in Multi-Domain Environments

In the coming years, blockchain technologies will be used in a variety of industries, including telecommunications. In this article, due to strict governance of telecommunication infrastructure, we propose a blockchain supported architecture, based on a permissioned distributed ledger (PDL) scheme, for a network management and orchestration platform. The main goal is to create a trusted environment for multiple-stakeholders, such as Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), a Mobile Network Operator (MNO), Vertical Service Providers (SPs), Legal and Regulation Authorities, and Responsible Ministry so that the life cycle of automated vertical network services (e.g., instantiation, scaling, termination, and migration/reallocation) can be managed securely and transparently in a multi-cloud and multi-domain environment. The proposed approach is also validated with an experimental Industry 4.0 scenario using the Quorum blockchain network (BCN) to measure various performance metrics (e.g., number of transactions and blocks, and time to write) of various service orchestrator (SO)-related instantiation metrics. At the end of the article, we present the main discussions on the evaluation results and existing standardization efforts for the convergence of BCN, Management and Orchestration (MANO), and network services for a given telecommunication infrastructure.