The IT world never stops evolving. Now that Cloud computing is fairly mainstream; look for “fog computing” to take center stage. Emerging technologies which utilize automation and analytics are driving the interest in Fog Computing.
Fog Computing: cloud computing and services move to the edge of the network
By moving parts of the Cloud closer to end users at the edge of the network, Fog Computing makes the Cloud better and faster. Select Cloud services are freed from dependence on large data centers.
With the Internet of Things (IoT) generating massive amounts of data and requiring computing power and storage, having application services at the edge of the network becomes essential. Moving all of the data IoT devices generate to a cloud data center isn’t efficient, and it slows down analysis and response. With Fog Computing, select data stays at the network edge, enabling real-time response. It also presents an opportunity to improve business network security, since the data lives at the network edge rather than in standard cloud platforms.
Fog Computing creates new business opportunities
Fog Computing is transforming business infrastructures. As new IoT devices are developed and supported by Fog Computing, increased business opportunities emerge. The experts at Cisco predict we’ll see many pay-as-you-go services on the market in the future — for example: pay-as–you-drive car insurance.
The distinguishing Fog Computing characteristics are:
- Proximity to end-users
- Dense geographical distribution
- Support for mobility; overcomes network bandwidth and availability issues
- Instant response to selected IoT data
In a nutshell, the Cloud of today isn’t designed to handle the massive amount of data IoT technologies generate. Fog Computing not only supports automation, it enables instant analysis and response to time-sensitive data. It provides opportunities for increased business network security, as well expanded business services. Services are hosted at the network edge or even on end devices such as set-top-boxes or access points. By moving services to the edge of the network, Fog reduces service latency, and improves Quality of Service (QoS), resulting in a superior user-experience.
Fog Computing supports:
- The Internet of Things (IoT).
- 5G mobile systems and embedded Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Big Data
- Edge analytics
Fog Computing enables support for IoT deployments by solving the current Cloud challenges of network bandwidth, latency, security and reliability. Thanks to its wide geographical distribution, the Fog paradigm is well-positioned to support real time big data and analytics. Just as a fog bank in nature hugs the earth, Fog Computing will hug its densely distributed data collection points.
