Fog computing or fog networking, also known as fogging, is an architecture that uses

edge device Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...

s to carry out a substantial amount of computation (

edge computing Edge computing is a distributed computing model that brings computation and data storage closer to the sources of data. More broadly, it refers to any design that pushes computation physically closer to a user, so as to reduce the Latency (engineer ...

), storage, and communication locally and routed over the

Internet backbone The Internet backbone is the principal data routes between large, strategically interconnected computer networks and core routers of the Internet. These data routes are hosted by commercial, government, academic and other high-capacity network ...

Concept

In 2011, the need to extend cloud computing with fog computing emerged, in order to cope with huge number of IoT devices and big data volumes for real-time low-latency applications. Fog computing, also called edge computing, is intended for distributed computing where numerous "peripheral" devices connect to a

cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles, suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...

. The word "fog" refers to its cloud-like properties, but closer to the "ground", i.e. IoT devices. Many of these devices will generate voluminous raw data (e.g., from sensors), and rather than forward all this data to cloud-based servers to be processed, the idea behind fog computing is to do as much processing as possible using computing units co-located with the data-generating devices, so that processed rather than raw data is forwarded, and bandwidth requirements are reduced. An additional benefit is that the processed data is most likely to be needed by the same devices that generated the data, so that by processing locally rather than remotely, the latency between input and response is minimized. This idea is not entirely new: in non-cloud-computing scenarios, special-purpose hardware (e.g., signal-processing chips performing

fast Fourier transform A fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an algorithm that computes the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of a sequence, or its inverse (IDFT). A Fourier transform converts a signal from its original domain (often time or space) to a representation in ...

s) has long been used to reduce latency and reduce the burden on a CPU. Fog networking consists of a control plane and a data plane. For example, on the data plane, fog computing enables computing services to reside at the edge of the network as opposed to servers in a data-center. Compared to

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

, fog computing emphasizes proximity to end-users and client objectives (e.g. operational costs, security policies, resource exploitation), dense geographical distribution and context-awareness (for what concerns computational and IoT resources), latency reduction and backbone bandwidth savings to achieve better

quality of service Quality of service (QoS) is the description or measurement of the overall performance of a service, such as a telephony or computer network, or a cloud computing service, particularly the performance seen by the users of the network. To quantitat ...

(QoS) and edge analytics/stream mining, resulting in superior user-experienceCisco RFP-2013-078. Fog Computing, Ecosystem, Architecture and Applications:

'' Also available from the Internet Archive:

'' and redundancy in case of failure while it is also able to be used in

Assisted Living An assisted living residence or assisted living facility (ALF) is a housing facility for people with disabilities or for adults who cannot or who choose not to live independently. The term is popular in the United States. Still, the setting i ...

scenarios.Cloud Evolution: Back to the Future?:

.'' Fog networking supports the

Internet of Things Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...

(IoT) concept, in which most of the devices used by humans on a daily basis will be connected to each other. Examples include phones, wearable health monitoring devices, connected vehicle and

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR), also known as mixed reality (MR), is a technology that overlays real-time 3D computer graphics, 3D-rendered computer graphics onto a portion of the real world through a display, such as a handheld device or head-mounted ...

using devices such as the Google Glass.Bonomi, F., Milito, R., Zhu, J., and Addepalli, S
Fog Computing and its Role in the Internet of Things
In Proc of MCC (2012), pp. 13-16.

''Cisco-Delivers-Vision-of-Fog-Computing-to-Accelerate-Value-from-Billions-of-Connected-Devices:

''IoT: Out Of The Cloud & Into The Fog:

.''Distributed intelligence and IoT fog:

''Fog Computing Keeps Data Right Where the Internet of Things Needs It:

'' IoT devices are often resource-constrained and have limited computational abilities to perform cryptography computations. A fog node can provide security for IoT devices by performing these cryptographic computations instead. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, SPAWAR, a division of the US Navy, is prototyping and testing a scalable, secure Disruption Tolerant Mesh Network to protect strategic military assets, both stationary and mobile. Machine-control applications, running on the mesh nodes, "take over", when Internet connectivity is lost. Use cases include Internet of Things e.g. smart drone swarms. The University of Melbourne is addressing the challenges of collecting and processing data from cameras, ECG devices, laptops, smartphones, and IoT devices with its project FogBus 2, which uses edge/fog and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to process data in real-time. ISO/IEC 20248 provides a method whereby the data of objects identified by

using Automated Identification Data Carriers (AIDC), a

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, Machine-readable data, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly ref ...

and/or

RFID Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. An RFID system consists of a tiny radio transponder called a tag, a radio receiver, and a transmitter. When tri ...

tag, can be read, interpreted, verified and made available into the "Fog" and on the "Edge," even when the AIDC tag has moved on.

History

The term "fog computing" was first developed by

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, s ...

in 2012. November 19, 2015,

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, m ...

ARM Holdings Arm Holdings plc (formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a British semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England, whose primary business is the design of central processing ...

Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, and

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, founded the

OpenFog Consortium The OpenFog Consortium (sometimes stylized as Open Fog Consortium) was a consortium of technology industry, high tech industry companies and academic institutions across the world aimed at the standardization and promotion of fog computing in vari ...

to promote interests and development in fog computing. Cisco Sr. Managing-Director Helder Antunes became the consortium's first chairman and Intel's Chief IoT Strategist Jeff Fedders became its first president.

Definition

Both

and fog computing provide storage, applications, and data to end-users. However, fog computing is closer to end-users and has wider geographical distribution. 'Cloud computing' is the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer. Also known as edge computing or fogging, fog computing facilitates the operation of compute, storage, and networking services between end devices and cloud computing data centers.

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into Outline of p ...

in March 2018 released a definition of fog computing adopting much of Cisco's commercial terminology as NIST Special Publication 500-325, ''Fog Computing Conceptual Model'', that defines fog computing as a horizontal, physical or virtual resource paradigm that resides between smart end-devices and traditional

data center A data center is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. Since IT operations are crucial for busines ...

. This paradigm supports vertically-isolated, latency-sensitive applications by providing ubiquitous, scalable, layered, federated, distributed computing, storage, and network connectivity. Thus, fog computing is most distinguished by distance from the edge. In the theoretical model of fog computing, fog computing nodes are physically and functionally operative between edge nodes and centralized cloud. Much of the terminology is undefined, including key architectural terms like "smart", and the distinction between fog computing from edge computing is not generally agreed.

Differences with edge computing and cloud computing

While edge computing is typically referred to the location where services are instantiated, fog computing implies distribution of the communication, computation, storage resources, and services on or close to devices and systems in the control of end-users. Fog computing is a medium weight and intermediate level of computing power. Rather than a substitute, fog computing often serves as a complement to cloud computing. Fog computing is more energy-efficient than cloud computing.

Standards

IEEE adopted the fog computing standards proposed by OpenFog Consortium.

References

{{Ambient intelligence Post-cloud computing architecture Distributed computing architecture Load balancing (computing) Networking hardware Internet of things Ambient intelligence