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Engineering Trustable and Auditable Choreography-based Systems Using Blockchain

Published: 11 February 2022 Publication History
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  • Abstract

    A key challenge in engineering distributed systems consists in the integration into their development of a decentralised infrastructure allowing the system participants to trust each other. In this article, we face such a challenge by proposing a model-driven methodology and a related framework to support the engineering of trustable and auditable systems. The approach is based on choreography diagrams specified in the Business Process Model and Notation standard, describing the interactions that should occur among the distributed components of systems. We support the whole lifecycle of choreographies, from their modelling to their distributed execution and auditing. The framework, based on blockchain technology, is named ChorChain. More specifically, ChorChain takes as input a BPMN choreography model and automatically translates it into a Solidity smart contract. The smart contract permits us to enforce the interactions among the cooperating components as prescribed by the choreography model. By leveraging on the auditability of blockchain, ChorChain also supports the activity of auditors continuously. In such a way, ChorChain enables auditors to get some degree of assurance on what happens simultaneously with, or shortly after, information disclosure. We assess the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methodology and framework through experiments conducted on the Rinkeby Ethereum Testnet.

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    Published In

    cover image ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems
    ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems  Volume 13, Issue 3
    September 2022
    312 pages
    ISSN:2158-656X
    EISSN:2158-6578
    DOI:10.1145/3512349
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    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 11 February 2022
    Accepted: 01 December 2021
    Revised: 01 September 2021
    Received: 01 August 2020
    Published in TMIS Volume 13, Issue 3

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    Author Tags

    1. BPMN
    2. choreography
    3. blockchain
    4. trust
    5. execution
    6. auditing

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