A Comprehensive Review of Multi-chain Architecture for Blockchain Integration in Organizations

Blockchain technology has evolved very quickly, yielding heterogeneous blockchain platforms often featuring specific characteristics and functionalities. However, the lack of interoperability and scalability among these platforms poses significant challenges to the widespread adoption of blockchain solutions in enterprise settings. The multi-chain architecture, which entails the use of interlinked chains for heterogeneous use-cases, has recently sparked interest as an approach for addressing these issues, enabling communication and collaboration among different blockchain networks. This review aims to provide an overview of existing research on multi-chain architectures for blockchain integration in organizations, with the goal of categorizing the existing literature based on their architectural characteristics. We conducted a systematic search and screening process, which yielded 44 relevant papers out of an initial pool of 223. The selected studies were categorized into five main themes: layered architectures, service-oriented architectures, enterprise architecture patterns, interoperability frameworks and protocols, and organizational models and governance mechanisms. Each category was analyzed through the lens of four key architectural perspectives-business, information, application, and technology-to meet our objectives. The findings of this review add to the growing body of knowledge on blockchain interoperability and enterprise integration, and provide valuable guidance to researchers, practitioners, and organizations as they explore multi-chain architectures integration.