Dependability Evaluation of a Blockchain-as-a-Service Environment

The blockchain shared ledger emerged as an alternative to the bureaucratic banking system that may take days to confirm a payment or a transfer between clients. The blockchain concept evolved and became viable for various applications beyond the domain of financial transactions. Blockchains become a way to reach better relationships through contract validation, documents transfer, and personal and business data security. Recently, the blockchain-as-a-service has debuted on Microsoft Data Centers, and now many share an infrastructure that can change and improve their security routines. This paper evaluates the feasibility of a blockchain-as-a-service infrastructure and helps those who plan to deploy or sell blockchains. A modeling methodology based on Dynamical Reliability Block Diagrams (DRBD) is adopted to evaluate two dependability attributes: system's reliability and availability. The proposed infrastructure contains the minimum requirements to deploy the Hyperledger Cello, a platform to create and manage blockchains. The availability results pointed out a system downtime of 121 hours per year and reliability issues that must be addressed when building blockchain-as-a-service infrastructures.