[Paper Review] A Survey on Blockchain & Cloud Integration

Soumik Sarker, Arnob Kumar Saha+1 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Dec 4, 2020

Blockchain Technology Applications and Security41 references4 citations

TL;DR

This survey presents a service-oriented taxonomy for blockchain-cloud integration, analyzing how blockchain enhances security, enables Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS), supports serverless computing (FaaS), and improves resource/tenant management in cloud environments. It provides a comparative review of existing works across these models, identifying key trends, limitations, and research gaps in the integration landscape.

ABSTRACT

Blockchain is one of the emerging technologies with the potential to disrupt many application domains. Cloud is an on-demand service paradigm facilitating the availability of shared resources for data storage and computation. In recent years, the integration of blockchain and cloud has received significant attention for ensuring efficiency, transparency, security and even for offering better cloud services in the form of novel service models. In order to exploit the full potential of blockchain-cloud integration, it is essential to have a clear understanding on the existing works within this domain. To facilitate this, there have been several survey papers, however, none of them covers the aspect of blockchain-cloud integration from a service-oriented perspective. This paper aims to fulfil this gap by providing a service oriented review of blockchain-cloud integration. Indeed, in this survey, we explore different service models into which blockchain has been integrated. For each service model, we review the existing works and present a comparative analysis so as to offer a clear and concise view in each category.

Motivation & Objective

• To address the lack of a comprehensive service-oriented review of blockchain-cloud integration in existing literature.
• To analyze how blockchain enhances security, enables new service models like BaaS and FaaS, and improves cloud resource and tenant management.
• To provide a comparative analysis of existing works across different service models to highlight advantages, limitations, and research gaps.
• To identify trends and future directions in blockchain-cloud integration, particularly the emergence of novel service models underpinned by blockchain.

Proposed method

• Developed a service-oriented taxonomy classifying blockchain-cloud integration into four models: Security-as-a-Service (SecaaS), Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS), Function-as-a-Service (FaaS), and resource/tenant management.
• Reviewed and analyzed existing works within each service model using a comparative framework based on scope, services, and smart-contract dependency.
• Evaluated research contributions through qualitative and comparative analysis, focusing on consensus mechanisms, privacy, scalability, and use cases.
• Conducted a year-wise trend analysis of publications (2016–2020) to identify research momentum and shifts in focus across service models.
• Used a systematic review approach to categorize and summarize 50+ relevant studies, with emphasis on technical mechanisms like game theory and smart contracts.
• Identified key challenges such as public blockchain scalability, privacy concerns, and the reliance on public platforms despite their limitations.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 How has blockchain been integrated into different cloud service models, and what are the key characteristics of each integration approach?
• RQ2 What are the advantages and limitations of using blockchain in Security-as-a-Service, Blockchain-as-a-Service, Function-as-a-Service, and resource/tenant management in cloud?
• RQ3 What trends are emerging in blockchain-cloud integration research, particularly in terms of platform choice (public vs. private) and service model adoption?
• RQ4 How do smart contracts and consensus mechanisms contribute to the functionality and efficiency of blockchain-integrated cloud services?
• RQ5 What are the major research gaps and future directions in blockchain-cloud integration, especially regarding novel service models like BaaS and FaaS?

Key findings

• The majority of blockchain-cloud integration research focuses on Security-as-a-Service, leveraging blockchain’s immutability and decentralization to enhance data integrity, access control, and provenance.
• Despite scalability and privacy limitations, most studies rely on public blockchains like Ethereum, likely due to the lack of mature private blockchain platforms such as Hyperledger Fabric at the time of publication.
• Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) and Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) are emerging as novel service models, with blockchain at the core of service delivery, indicating a shift toward blockchain-native cloud platforms.
• Smart contracts are widely used in resource and tenant management, enabling automated, transparent, and trustless operations—e.g., in energy cost minimization and utility management.
• A game-theoretic approach is employed in some works to optimize pricing and resource allocation, demonstrating a strategic use of blockchain for economic efficiency in cloud environments.
• The year-wise analysis shows increasing research interest in FaaS and BaaS, with a notable rise in publications from 2018 to 2020, signaling growing maturity and innovation in blockchain-integrated cloud services.