Secure SLA Management Using Smart Contracts for SDN-Enabled WSN

Abstract

The rapid evolution of the IoT has paved the way for new opportunities in smart city domains, including e-health, smart homes, and precision agriculture. However, this proliferation of services demands effective SLAs between customers and service providers, especially for critical services. Difficulties arise in maintaining the integrity of such agreements, especially in vulnerable wireless environments. This study proposes a novel SLA management model that uses an SDN-Enabled WSN consisting of wireless nodes to interact with smart contracts in a straightforward manner. The proposed model ensures the persistence of network metrics and SLA provisions through smart contracts, eliminating the need for intermediaries to audit payment and compensation procedures. The reliability and verifiability of the data prevents doubts from the contracting parties. To meet the high-performance requirements of the blockchain in the proposed model, low-cost algorithms have been developed for implementing blockchain technology in wireless sensor networks with low-energy and low-capacity nodes. Furthermore, a cryptographic signature control code is generated by wireless nodes using the in-memory private key and the dynamic random key from the smart contract at runtime to prevent tampering with data transmitted over the network. This control code enables the verification of end-to-end data signatures. The efficient generation of dynamic keys at runtime is ensured by the flexible and high-performance infrastructure of the SDN architecture.