Oracle-based process automation in DLT dominated ecosystems with an application to German waterway transportation

Distributed ledger technology (DLT) has been designed to ensure the correctness and integrity of transaction and process management. A ledger maintains records of data transactions as well as assures the correct execution of processes attached to data. Consistency across processes and parties is achieved by means of consensus building. However, scalability is a major concern when and significant amounts of data need confirmation. When digitalizing existing business processes with serious amounts of data, scalability becomes a pivotal objective. Hence, technical means for information compression become a vital asset. This paper presents a novel approach for data aggregation. On the one hand, data are aggregated in order to merely maintain an audit certificate of the aggregate on the ledger. On the other hand, provenance of raw data aggregated can be traced and proven correctly. Hence, audit services for information exchange in business relationships can scale, while raw data of supplier parties must not be unveiled in detail. We present a novel architecture for efficient data aggregation, while ensuring smart contracts and their main functionality of processing relevant process data. German waterway transportation serves as evaluation scenario. Moreover, decentral identity management is introduced as anchor element of our DLT-enabled ecosystem for business collaboration. Hence, preserving sovereignty and safety of personal data can be assured for M2M economies.