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Everything You Wanted To Know About Fog Computing

Oh, how we love our buzzwords. By now, I’m certain you’ve heard at least a few whispers about the latest piece of jargon that’s been floating around; a technological development with a close relationship to mobile, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things. I’m speaking, of course, about fog computing.

It’s a term even more ill-defined than cloud computing - if indeed that’s possible. Part of the reason for this is the fact that the fog is essentially an extension of the cloud. It’s a new paradigm that’s changing cloud computing in much the same way as cloud computing initially changed virtualization.

This definition isn’t really doing a whole lot for you, is it? Alright. Let’s look at this in a bit more depth, shall we?

What exactly is the fog - and how does it fit into enterprise computing?

Fog Computing Defined

For our definition, we’re going to turn to Cisco. In a brief published back in 2013, the company defines the fog as basically a new cloud paradigm that places a much greater focus on edge devices;a paradigm made necessary by the growing prominence of mobile technology and embedded sensors. While the cloud is generally much more loosely distributed, the fog tends to be much denser in nature, with fog nodes positioned in much closer proximity to the end-user.

“Services are hosted at the network edge or even end devices such as set-top boxes or access points. By doing so, Fog reduces service latency and improves QoS, resulting in a superior end-user experience,” reads the brief. “Unlike traditional data centers, Fog devices are geographically distributed over heterogeneous platforms, spanning multiple management domains.”

In essence, the fog is about taking computing from the data center to the user. It’s about reducing bandwidth and latency by reducing the distance information has to travel; about taking things straight to the edge of the network, rather than the center. In other words, fog computing can also be known by another, less-“buzzwordy” name - Edge Computing.

What’s Driving The Fog’s Spread?

The fog differs from the cloud in one vital aspect - cloud computing places the focus on a centralized server with which all connected devices communicate. That works well enough when you’ve only a few hundred cloud platforms or gadgets connecting to a server, but what about when you increase that number exponentially? I suspect most of you already know the answer - eventually, either the network or the server will be unable to keep up with the demand.

Eventually, everything will come crashing down.

“Today, there might be hundreds of connected devices in an office or data center,” writes Thoughts On Cloud’s Ahmed Banafa. “In just a few years, that number could explode to thousands or tens of thousands, all connected and communicating. Most of the buzz around fog has a direct correlation with IoT. The fact that everything from cars to thermostats are gaining web intelligence means that direct user-end computing and communication may soon be more important than ever.”

In Closing: How The Fog And The Cloud Work Together To Change Enterprise

At this point, I feel it’s important to note that fog computing is by no means a replacement for cloud computing. It should instead be thought of as more of an augmentation - a means by which enterprises are further empowering and streamlining their cloud systems, offering their users more efficient Internet access and de-emphasizing dependency on carriers for bandwidth and latency. The idea, in other words, is not to eliminate the cloud, but to enhance it, according to Data Center Knowledge’s Bill Kleyman.

This will, in turn, lead to more seamless cloud integration, better support for mobility and IoT technology, and better overall service for the user.

“With the increase in data and cloud services utilization,” explains Kleyman, “Fog Computing will play a key role in helping reduce latency and improve the user experience. We are now truly distributing the data plane and pushing advanced services to the edge. By doing so, administrators are able to bring rich content to the user faster, more efficiently, and - very importantly - more economically.”

“This, ultimately, will mean better data access, improved corporate analytics capabilities, and an overall improvement in the end-user computing experience.”

About William - Will Hayles is a technical writer and blogger for Outscale, a leading cloud hosting provider in the USA and France.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Outscale .