Fog Computing: A Boost For Cloud Computing And IoT

Abstract

IoT has become an integral part of our lives today. Right from the morning alarm to reminders of all day activities till the bedtime reminders we have IoT devices to help us. Alexa, Health tracking devices to name few, have become an intrinsic part of many human lives. There are millions of such devices on the network which are connected to the Internet, all collecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the Internet. All these data coming from IoT devices goes to cloud storage for future analysis. This gave rise to a concept called ―Cloud Computing‖. In cloud computing, remote servers hosted on the internet are used to store, manage and process data which has come from various IoT devices. Data generated through these devices is send to the cloud over the internet, instead of storing them in in-house storage devices. Thus, cloud computing has brought a huge change for both individuals and businesses. The most important benefit of cloud is, it eliminates the need of in-house data storage and thereby it helps to decrease the storage and operational cost. Since its inception, Cloud computing has increasingly became popular in the business world. As we can see, technology is evolving at a very fast pace and many businesses, small or large are slowly turned/turning to the Cloud. Organizations recognized the impact of cloud computing on their revenue, productivity, and security. Today, most of our daily activities are based on cloud without us even knowing that! You are using cloud:  When you are taking backup of your mobile data online,  When you are listening music or watching videos online,  When you are performing Data Analysis, and  When you use On-demand services from banks or websites etc. According to Domo‘s ninth annual ‗Data Never Sleeps‘ infographic, 65% of the world‘s population — around 5.17 billion people — had access to the internet in 2021. The amount of data consumed globally was 79 zettabytes, and this is projected to grow to over 180 zettabytes by 2025. The rapid growth of wireless technology has given mobile device users tremendous computing power [1]. With so many users at the edge network using cloud services, give rise to congestion and significant response latency of data. This left organizations questioning the quality and quantity of data that they store in the cloud as they are paying huge sum for using cloud services. As the data flow to cloud is going up every day, it is making real-time response difficult at times for edge network users. As a solution Fog Computing is introduced in cloud environment; it is an extension of cloud placed closer to each area of end users. This solution provides low response latency for devices that request data from cloud. It also provides processing and storage features to IoT/sensors which do not adopt them. With Fog services we are able to enhance the cloud experience by isolating user‘s data that need to live on the edge.