We will Use Fog when Cloud Falls Short
Even though Cloud technologies are so new in our lives, and the productivity, benefits, and requirements of these technologies are still questioned by many businesses, in November 2015, the OpenFog Consortium founded with the support of ARM, Cisco, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, and Princeton University brought a whole new perspective to these technologies. (1)
We can see that the simplest example of the reflection of cloud technology in our daily life in mobile many application information that we do not keep in our mobile phones but are served us by cloud through wireless connection. (2) During this flow/communication, when the critical information of very large structures must be transmitted or processed urgently, the long path that the information is transmitted through or the stops along the way are beginning to become a problem. With the widespread adoption of IoT technologies and the growth of the data they produce, you can guess how much this problem will be confronted. The OpenFog Consortium was founded to overcome such problems.
What is Fog Computing?
The method we already knew as Edge Computing has begun to be referred as Fog Computing thanks to the patented work of CISCO. (3)
This technology is an architectural method that is constituted for those who have real-time data analytics and those who want to maximize safety. This system provides opportunities that cloud technology cannot provide for data that needs to be processed immediately when instant data processing is critical (for example, in a hacker attack) and even milliseconds are critical.
Another area of use that may have an effect on our daily lives is the smart traffic lights to be used within the scope of smart cities. By looking at the traffic intensity, traffic accident and weather on the road, we can say that signaling can be intelligently calculated automatically for each light locally, and related lights can be changed by informing each other, so that with this system we can provide relief for metropolitan problems, and this is perhaps causes the most trouble. (4)
How does Fog Computing contribute to IoT?
As smart sensors, devices, and IoT become more popular, the need for making analyses with correct data, location, network, and time has increased even more.
The services provided by fog technology in this environment are as follows: (4)
- Reducing the cost of sending and processing the data to the cloud and storing it,
- Ensuring the data security and minimizing the cloud communication when it is requested to prevent data leave the source or environment where it is created,
- Accelerating real-time analyses and decision-making,
- To minimize the risk that may arise from the inability to provide potential cloud communication in some very critical situations.
Although the studies in this area is very new, we will get acquainted with the Fog structures in our days IoT is spreading rapidly.
- https://www.rtinsights.com/what-is-fog-computing-open-consortium/
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/10/14/what-is-fog-computing-and-why-it-matters-in-our-big-data-and-iot-world/#71f4189c64ef
- http://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/definition/fog-computing-fogging
- https://www.rtinsights.com/why-the-industrial-iot-needs-an-open-source-edge-platform
