BGP-LSChain: An Inter-domain Link State Sharing Framework Based on Blockchain

Nowadays, the Internet has become a huge network composed of multiple autonomous systems (ASs) which are managed by various network operators. Network operators try to apply different network optimization technologies, based on link state information such as link bandwidth, link delay, to improve the network performance. However, inter-domain network optimization is hard to realize due to the lack of inter-domain link state information while one AS can only gather the link state information inside itself. Obviously, network information sharing among different ASs is necessary. Supporting for "trustless disintermediation", blockchain technology provides capabilities for cooperation among different ASs. We propose a new blockchain-based framework named BGP Link State Sharing Chain(BGP-LSChain), to help different AS owners sharing inter-domain link state. In this framework, we integrate a data verification mechanism and an AS credit rating mechanism to prevent fake data, which are realized by various smart contracts to control data sharing, data verification and credit rating. We implement an BGP-LSChain prototype and conduct experiments to evaluate it. The results show that while helping sharing data among different AS owners, the time cost of BGP-LSChain operations is within a reasonable and acceptable range.