BRILLIANT: Blockchain based secure, reliable & resilient operation of critical infrastructure
In BRILLIANT we focus on the Blockchain as a structural component, where the application itself depends on the role of the Blockchain for its functionality, taking advantage either on its distributed nature, its transparency, its immutability or a combination of these properties. Currently, on BRILLIANT, the main applications explored focuses on monitoring and virtual redundancy for distribution networks, where cost-efficient distributed alternatives represent a good option for the monitoring, automation and control of the electrical system, especially due to the horizontal scalability versus the vertical scalability required by centralized solutions.
Virtual Redundancy as a Service: Simply BRILLIANT.
BRILLIANT is conceived as to provide resiliency to critical infrastructure on electrical networks by proposing a distributed monitoring and automation topology, where the measurement, processing and actuation equipment are virtualized and accessible by the implementation of ITC strategies based on TCP/IP.
Moreover, through the device virtualization we make use of the metadata associated to the hardware characteristics in order to match the different requirements imposed by the applications. This matching process is achieved through a smart contract: A code embedded in the Blockchain that executes to make possible different interactions between two or more users that interact with the Blockchain. In this case, the users are the Processing nodes in charge of monitoring and controlling the network.
In this way, instead of implementing multiple elements of the same hardware to guarantee the continuity of the service on critical infrastructure, we have proposed the virtualization of the process in a way that the image of the process lies on different machine of the network and exploiting the idle resources present on the system in order to fulfill the reliability requirements imposed by the process itself. Through the Blockchain, we bring transparency and immutability to the distributed network, creating a trust mechanism for the critical infrastructure.
Blockchain as a binding element for Distributed Monitoring.
Monitoring networks are often related to local solutions or to centralized topologies, where in the second one we expect a higher exploitation of the communication technologies. In the other hand, Distributed Monitoring are commonly proposed as a good option for the implementation of the pre-existent local infrastructure by aggregating robust communication technologies and coordination as well as synchronization software. To implement these functionalities, a Blockchain solution is being explored in order to easily deploy a distributed network for monitoring purposes, enabling in this way to escalate from local micro-monitoring to systemwise macro-monitoring networks by the simple aggregation of the local solutions. Simply BRILLIANT.