The role of Fog Computing in IoT
A
few months back everything was in the ‘cloud’ but the buzzword these days is ‘Fog
Computing’ and it is related to how efficiently data is being stored and
accessed. Basically, cloud computing is the ability to store and retrieve data
from an off-site location. Cloud computing is a major reason how the traditional
phones got smart. Our phones don’t have a lot of built in space in order to
store information that is needed to access applications and services. All the
data is being transmitted to and from the cloud in order to provide the
services we need. But there is a problem with cloud computing technology, it’s
the limitation of bandwidth.
A
report by World Economic Forum (WEF) predicted that U.S. ranks 35th in the world
for bandwidth per user, this is a serious issue if you’re trying to transmit
data wirelessly.
The
idea of Fog Computing attempts to beat some of these physical limitations. With
Fog Computing technology, all the processing happens on devices physically
closer to where the data has been collected, instead of sending data to the
cloud. With the evolution of Internet of Things, more and more physical objects
(devices) are being added to the network and they all are connected wirelessly
to transmit and receive data.
Fog
Computing is also called as Edge Computing. It is supposed to resolve problems
by storing data close to the ‘ground’. In other words it stores data in local
computers and storage devices, rather than routing all the information through
a centralized DC in the cloud. Fog or Edge Computing is a prototype campaigned
by few of the leading IoT technology players such as Cisco, IBM and Dell. They are
pioneers of representing the change in architecture wherein intelligence is
pushed to edge from cloud. Basically, fog computing is responsible for enabling
quick response time, reduces network latency and traffic and also supports backbone
bandwidth savings to achieve better quality of service (QoS). It is also supposed to selectively
relay applicable data to the cloud.
IDC
predicts that by the end of 2025 about 45 per cent of world’s data would be
moved closer to the network edge. It is believed that fog computing is the only
technology that can withstand AI, 5G and IoT in the years to come.
Another
study by IDC estimates that by 2020, 10 per cent of the world’s data will be
produced by edge devices. This will drive the need for more efficient fog
computing solutions that could provide reduced latency.
So
what’s the main difference between Edge computing and Fog computing? Cisco
coined the term ‘fog computing’ and IBM calls it ‘edge computing’. Basically, edge
computing is a subset of fog computing. It simply refers to data being
processed close to where it is originated. Fog computing lets data to be
processed and accessed well and more rapidly, which reduces the risk of data
latency.
A
brilliant use case for fog computing is the smart traffic light system, that
has the capability of preventing accidents and deduce traffic congestion by
changing its signals based on surveillance of incoming traffic. Also, this data
is sent for further analysis to the clouds.
The
growth of fog computing frameworks provides much more choices to organizations
for processing information and data where ever it is appropriate. There are
certain applications, where data may need to be processed as quickly as
possible – for example, in a manufacturing industry where all the machines
connected in a network need to be able to react to an incident as soon as
possible. Fog computing helps create low-latency network connections between
devices and their analytics end points. This architecture in turn reduces the
amount of bandwidth needed as compared to cloud. It can also be used in
scenarios where there is no bandwidth connection needed to transfer data. Hence,
data is processed close to where it is originated. An added benefit is advanced
security features that can be applied by users in a fog network, right from segmentation
of network traffic to virtually extending firewalls to protect the network.
It
would be wise for any enterprise relying on someone else’s data center for
storing their data to consider fog computing which is an emerging trend. They
should also figure out how their businesses might get affected if they continue
using traditional ways to store data in the days to come due to lack of
bandwidth to access the data.
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