Survey: Sharding in Blockchains

Yu, G; Wang, X; Yu, K; Ni, W; Zhang, JA; Liu, RP

Survey: Sharding in Blockchains

Yu, G Wang, X

Yu, K Ni, W Zhang, JA Liu, RP

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Publisher:: IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC
Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: IEEE Access, 2020, 8, pp. 14155-14181
Issue Date:: 2020-01-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Yu, G
dc.contributor.author	Wang, X https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9439-6437
dc.contributor.author	Yu, K
dc.contributor.author	Ni, W
dc.contributor.author	Zhang, JA
dc.contributor.author	Liu, RP
dc.date.accessioned	2021-01-05T00:59:01Z
dc.date.available	2021-01-05T00:59:01Z
dc.date.issued	2020-01-01
dc.identifier.citation	IEEE Access, 2020, 8, pp. 14155-14181
dc.identifier.issn	2169-3536
dc.identifier.issn	2169-3536
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/145078
dc.description.abstract	© 2013 IEEE. The Blockchain technology, featured with its decentralized tamper-resistance based on a Peer-to-Peer network, has been widely applied in financial applications, and even further been extended to industrial applications. However, the weak scalability of traditional Blockchain technology severely affects the wide adoption due to the well-known trillema of decentralization-security-scalability in Blockchains. In regards to this issue, a number of solutions have been proposed, targeting to boost the scalability while preserving the decentralization and security. They range from modifying the on-chain data structure and consensus algorithms to adding the off-chain technologies. Therein, one of the most practical methods to achieve horizontal scalability along with the increasing network size is sharding, by partitioning network into multiple shards so that the overhead of duplicating communication, storage, and computation in each full node can be avoided. This paper presents a survey focusing on sharding in Blockchains in a systematic and comprehensive way. We provide detailed comparison and quantitative evaluation of major sharding mechanisms, along with our insights analyzing the features and restrictions of the existing solutions. We also provide theoretical upper-bound of the throughput for each considered sharding mechanism. The remaining challenges and future research directions are also reviewed.
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC
dc.relation	NSW Department of Primary Industries
dc.relation	Food Agility CRC Limited
dc.relation.ispartof	IEEE Access
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2965147
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights	© 2020 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.	en_US
dc.subject	08 Information and Computing Sciences, 09 Engineering, 10 Technology
dc.title	Survey: Sharding in Blockchains
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	8
utslib.for	08 Information and Computing Sciences
utslib.for	09 Engineering
utslib.for	10 Technology
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - GBDTC - Global Big Data Technologies
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology/School of Electrical and Data Engineering
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*
dc.date.updated	2021-01-05T00:58:51Z
pubs.publication-status	Published
pubs.volume	8

Abstract:

© 2013 IEEE. The Blockchain technology, featured with its decentralized tamper-resistance based on a Peer-to-Peer network, has been widely applied in financial applications, and even further been extended to industrial applications. However, the weak scalability of traditional Blockchain technology severely affects the wide adoption due to the well-known trillema of decentralization-security-scalability in Blockchains. In regards to this issue, a number of solutions have been proposed, targeting to boost the scalability while preserving the decentralization and security. They range from modifying the on-chain data structure and consensus algorithms to adding the off-chain technologies. Therein, one of the most practical methods to achieve horizontal scalability along with the increasing network size is sharding, by partitioning network into multiple shards so that the overhead of duplicating communication, storage, and computation in each full node can be avoided. This paper presents a survey focusing on sharding in Blockchains in a systematic and comprehensive way. We provide detailed comparison and quantitative evaluation of major sharding mechanisms, along with our insights analyzing the features and restrictions of the existing solutions. We also provide theoretical upper-bound of the throughput for each considered sharding mechanism. The remaining challenges and future research directions are also reviewed.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/145078