Fog Computing - Is it the Cloud's Future

Experts in the industry opine that Cloud may not be necessarily sufficient for meeting the rapidly increasing demands of current time. To counter this problem, fog computing will play a crucial role in the coming time as it involves extending the fundamental Cloud computing technology to a network's edge thus causing the end devices and datacenters to operate in a more seamless manner. Henceforth, fog computing can be seen as the extension of Cloud computing but almost replacing the parent technology due to its effectiveness.

So, what Fog Computing Stands for?

Fog extends the Cloud much closer to all things that not just produce but also act on Internet of Things (IoT) data. Deployment of such fog nodes or devices can be done anywhere within a specific network connection. A fog node can be any device having computing, storage, & network connectivity - examples of which include routers, switches, industrial controllers, embedded servers etc. Fog computing can be applied successfully when one or more of the following conditions are met -

·         Data collection occurs across the extreme edges

·         Data generation is happening by means of millions of sources

·         Very short time, almost less than a second, is available for analyzing and acting upon the data

What Advantages Fog Computing Brings Along?

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       Better business agility - Developers will be able to develop fog applications quickly & accordingly deploy the same as per requirement.

·         Improved Security - By deploying physical security & cyber security solutions as deployed in your IT environment, it will be possible to safeguard fog nodes more efficiently.

·         More Useful Insights - Easily analyze all your mission-critical data locally rather than transferring it to Cloud for analysis purpose.

·         Reduced Operating Expense - Process sensitive data locally and conserve network bandwidth to bring down the operating expenses.

Fog Computing as Cloud's Future...

The Internet of Things generates two exabytes of data on a daily basis and fog computing offers Cloud that much-needed companion to effectively handle such data. Moreover, exploding data volume, velocity and variety has always been a big challenge and with fog computing this challenge is solved too as data is processed nearer to the source of its production. Also, round trip to the Cloud is eliminated as this advanced form of computing ensures accelerated response to events. Despite these interesting pros associated with fog computing, slow industry adaption will be one of the greatest limitations associated with it besides some unsolved questions on security as well. But undoubtedly fog computing will enjoy the leading edge over Cloud computing and hence it would not be wrong to consider it as the future of Cloud computing.