Robust and Trustworthy Data Sharing Framework Leveraging On-Chain and Off-Chain Collaboration

The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) systems has resulted in the generation of substantial data, presenting new challenges in reliable storage and trustworthy sharing. Conventional distributed storage systems are hindered by centralized management and lack traceability, while blockchain systems are limited by low capacity and high latency. To address these challenges, the present study investigates the reliable storage and trustworthy sharing of IoT data, and presents a novel system architecture that integrates on-chain and off-chain data manage systems. This architecture, integrating blockchain and distributed storage technologies, provides high-capacity, high-performance, traceable, and verifiable data storage and access. The on-chain system, built on Hyperledger Fabric, manages metadata, verification data, and permission information of the raw data. The off-chain system, implemented using IPFS Cluster, ensures the reliable storage and efficient access to massive files. A collaborative storage server is designed to integrate on-chain and off-chain operation interfaces, facilitating comprehensive data operations. We provide a unified access interface for user-friendly system interaction. Extensive testing validates the system’s reliability and stable performance. The proposed approach significantly enhances storage capacity compared to standalone blockchain systems. Rigorous reliability tests consistently yield positive outcomes. With average upload and download throughputs of roughly 20 and 30 MB/s, respectively, the system’s throughput surpasses the blockchain system by a factor of 4 to 18.