Bitcoin meets SDN / NFV

Everyone is familiar with a technology that can be useful for the verification of messages in SDN and NFV, but not in the form they’d expect. Bitcoin uses what’s called “block chaining” or (as one word) “blockchain” to keep a tamper-proof history of something. One could apply blockchain principles to SDN and NFV interfaces or control elements to keep a log of everything that happened there, and because the players in the process can be authenticated via a token using a public key, you can identify who did what. One company I’ve encountered who offers this is Guardtime, who as it happens has a relationship with Ericsson. However, I can’t find any specific reference to the two companies working on an SDN or NFV strategy together, which suggests that blockchain applications to control/management security are still novel.”
Tom Nolle
here.

In recent blogs I’ve spoken of the increasing overlap potential for OSS and security, particularly in a virtualised networking environment.

Tom’s blog (link above) discusses some of the security challenges facing SDN and NFV. l particularly like his thoughts on using block-chaining for management messaging. Interesting concept.

Well worth a closer read.

I figure that other applications of blockchain in OSS include:
1.Data reconciliation across interfaces (particularly bi-party interfaces)
2.Event transaction logs
3.Point of Interconnect and network federation, especially financial implications
4.Automated contract handling (eg SLAs, QoS, delivery times, etc)
5.Resource allocation (especially in virtualised networking)

If this article was helpful, subscribe to the Passionate About OSS Blog to get each new post sent directly to your inbox. 100% free of charge and free of spam.

Our Solutions

Share:

Most Recent Articles

No telco wants to buy an OSS/BSS

When you’re a senior exec in a telco and you’ve been made responsible for allocating resources, it’s unlikely that you ever think, “gee, we really

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.