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Fig. 2 Tier-based cluster of IIoT devices

hardware support exists for the platform, thus making the system future-proof and

increases the financial efficiency of the system as well. By intelligently splitting all

the computationally variable devices into clusters of similar computational power

devices, we also avoid one potential issue of redundant mirroring of unnecessary

blockchain data.

In an industrial environment, generally, there are several input streams of data like

sensor data, device data, log data and many more into IIoT devices having different

computation capabilities. On receiving the input, the IIoT devices initiate blockchain

formation for storing these data. To check the tier type of the device, the token of

that particular device is searched for. If the token already exists, an appropriate hash

algorithm is selected. If it is a new device where the token has not been generated, the

earlier benchmarking process is executed, generating the token and storing it in the

device. Next, the appropriate hash algorithm is used for blockchain creation. Then

the data is stored in a decentralized manner in local servers or in the cloud or any

other storage devices. This mechanism is depicted in Fig. 1.

The vital part of this model is selecting appropriate hash algorithms. The hash

function is the most important part of any cryptographic blockchain system and as

such, it is a fundamental component of blockchain technology. Hashing is a method

of applying the hash function to data to compute a relatively unique output for all

inputs as in Fig. 3. The procedure is called message digest. It allows to independently

acquire hash data from input data and produce the same results on applying the same

input, proving that the data has not changed. Different hash algorithms have different

properties, so all of them provides differing levels of security and can have different

vulnerabilities. We take a look at some of these properties in Table 1.