Blockchain technology has been deemed to be an ideal choice for strengthening existing computing systems in varied manners. As one of the network-enabled technologies, cloud computing has been broadly adopted in the industry through numerous cloud service models. Fusing blockchain technology with existing cloud systems has a great potential in both functionality/performance enhancement and security/privacy improvement. The question remains on how blockchain technology inserts into current deployed cloud solutions and enables the reengineering of cloud datacenter. This survey addresses this issue and investigates recent efforts in the technical fusion of blockchain and clouds. Three technical dimensions roughly are covered in this work. First, we concern the service model and review an emerging cloud-relevant blockchain service model, Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS); second, security is considered a key technical dimension in this work and both access control and searchable encryption schemes are assessed; finally, we examine the performance of cloud datacenter with supports/participance of blockchain from hardware and software perspectives. Main findings of this survey will be theoretical supports for future reference of blockchain-enabled reengineering of cloud datacenter.

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区块链遇上云计算：一项调查

区块链技术被认为是以各种方式加强现有计算系统的理想选择。云计算作为网络使能技术之一，通过众多的云服务模式被业界广泛采用。将区块链技术与现有云系统融合在功能/性能增强和安全/隐私改进方面具有巨大潜力。问题仍然是区块链技术如何插入当前部署的云解决方案并实现云数据中心的再造。本次调查解决了这个问题，并调查了最近在区块链和云技术融合方面的努力。本文大致涵盖了三个技术维度。首先，我们关注服务模型，回顾一个新兴的与云相关的区块链服务模型，区块链即服务（BaaS）；其次，安全性被认为是这项工作的一个关键技术维度，访问控制和可搜索加密方案都进行了评估；最后，我们从硬件和软件的角度考察了支持/参与区块链的云数据中心的性能。本次调查的主要发现将为未来基于区块链的云数据中心再造提供理论支持。