Department of Computer Science, Technische Universität München, München, Germany e-mails: diego.marmsoler@tum.de, leo.eichhorn@tum.de"/>
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2020 Volume 35
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH   Open Access    

On the impact of architecture design decisions on the quality of blockchain-based applications

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  • Abstract: In software architectures, architectural design decisions (ADDs) strongly influence the quality of the resulting software system. Wrong decisions lead to low-quality systems and are difficult to repair later on in the development process. As of today, little is known about the impact of certain ADDs for the development of architectures for blockchain-based systems. Thus, it is difficult to predict the outcome of certain ADDs when developing architectures for such systems. In the following, we propose a simulation-based approach for blockchain architectures in which the impact of certain ADDs on certain quality attributes can be simulated. To this end, we first implemented a simulation environment for blockchain architectures. The simulation environment was then used to execute a series of experiments from which we derived a set of hypotheses about the impact of certain ADDs on quality attributes for blockchain architectures. Finally, we tested the hypotheses using statistical analyses and derived an empirical model for blockchain architectures based on the outcome of the analysis. The model can be used by architects to predict the effect of certain decisions in the design of blockchain architectures before implementing them.
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  • Cite this article

    Diego Marmsoler, Leo Eichhorn. 2020. On the impact of architecture design decisions on the quality of blockchain-based applications. The Knowledge Engineering Review 35(1), doi: 10.1017/S0269888920000193
    Diego Marmsoler, Leo Eichhorn. 2020. On the impact of architecture design decisions on the quality of blockchain-based applications. The Knowledge Engineering Review 35(1), doi: 10.1017/S0269888920000193
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH   Open Access    

On the impact of architecture design decisions on the quality of blockchain-based applications

  • Received: 24 May 2019
  • Revised: 01 February 2020
  • Accepted: 22 February 2020
  • Published online: 02 June 2020
The Knowledge Engineering Review  35,  2020, 35(1)  |  Cite this article

Abstract: Abstract: In software architectures, architectural design decisions (ADDs) strongly influence the quality of the resulting software system. Wrong decisions lead to low-quality systems and are difficult to repair later on in the development process. As of today, little is known about the impact of certain ADDs for the development of architectures for blockchain-based systems. Thus, it is difficult to predict the outcome of certain ADDs when developing architectures for such systems. In the following, we propose a simulation-based approach for blockchain architectures in which the impact of certain ADDs on certain quality attributes can be simulated. To this end, we first implemented a simulation environment for blockchain architectures. The simulation environment was then used to execute a series of experiments from which we derived a set of hypotheses about the impact of certain ADDs on quality attributes for blockchain architectures. Finally, we tested the hypotheses using statistical analyses and derived an empirical model for blockchain architectures based on the outcome of the analysis. The model can be used by architects to predict the effect of certain decisions in the design of blockchain architectures before implementing them.

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    Acknowledgments

    • The authors would like to thank Manfred Broy and all the anonymous reviewers of SDLT3 for their comments and helpful suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. Parts of the work on which we report in this paper were funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under grant no. 01Is16043A.

    • In this paper, only permissionless blockchains are considered. For permissioned blockchains, see Vukolić (2017).

    • The percentage of SBs is modeled and visualized using locally estimated scatterplot smoothing fits (Cleveland, 1979; R Core Team, 2017).

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    • © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press2020Cambridge University Press
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    Diego Marmsoler, Leo Eichhorn. 2020. On the impact of architecture design decisions on the quality of blockchain-based applications. The Knowledge Engineering Review 35(1), doi: 10.1017/S0269888920000193
    Diego Marmsoler, Leo Eichhorn. 2020. On the impact of architecture design decisions on the quality of blockchain-based applications. The Knowledge Engineering Review 35(1), doi: 10.1017/S0269888920000193
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