An architecture pattern for trusted orchestration in IoT edge clouds

Fog and edge architectures provide a link between centralised clouds and the world of IoT and sensors. The architectures consist of devices of different sizes that coordinate the communication with sensors and cloud services, and that process data from or for the sensors and the cloud locally. In dynamic settings that allow resources to be created, placed, used and removed at any time, advanced orchestration techniques are needed for the activities. Often, these architectures cross organisational boundaries, which causes trust concerns. The origin of data and the identity of sensors or actuators needs to be identified. Additionally, data needs to be stored securely. Orchestration activities across boundaries are subject to a contractual perspective. We present here an architecture pattern that supports trusted orchestration for edge clouds. The W3C Provenance standard is the conceptual foundation of the pattern. Permissioned blockchain technology serves as the platform to implement the provenance framework.