Applications of Cloud Computing, Fog Computing, and Edge Computing

Cloud computing and big data are well known to the public with the rise of IoT, but people may not be familiar with mentioning fog computing. With the development of IoT, existing cloud networks can no longer adapt to the growing data load and processing needs, especially in real-world applications where real-time requirements are stringent. IoT cloud services face high latency due to insufficient bandwidth, vulnerability to network attacks, lack of location awareness, and downtime.

To address these issues, related providers are slowly turning to fog computing, which expands the network computing model of cloud computing and extends network computing from the center to the edge of the network, thus making applications more widespread. However, the difference between fog computing and edge computing is that it is more hierarchical, where several layers can form a network, and edge computing is a separate node that does not form its network. Fog computing can be widely interconnected between nodes. Edge computing runs its nodes in silos and must be transmitted over the network.

What is fog computing?

Fog computing is the same image as cloud computing. Clouds float in the sky and are unreachable; fog is realistic, close to the ground, and close by. Fog computing is a distributed computing infrastructure for the Internet of Things, an extension of cloud computing that extends the cloud closer to the edge where IoT data is generated and manipulated, with a vast geographic distribution and a massive sensor network with a large number of network nodes, which are edge computing devices. It enables data to be analyzed and managed locally for immediate solutions. If edge nodes can get information instantly, problems that cannot be handled at the edge nodes can be uploaded to the fog computing layer. When fog computing cannot solve them, they can be uploaded to the cloud again, reducing bandwidth consumption, saving cost and time, and improving response rates.

Cloud computing, fog computing, and edge computing

Fog computing does not require users to connect to a remote large data center (cloud) to provide services. What cloud computing can provide, fog computing can also basically meet, but the performance of the platform used for fog computing is not as the cloud computing platform.

Fog computing is not a powerful server but consists of weak performance and more decentralized computers with various functions and is a semi-virtualized service computing architecture, emphasizing the number of individual computing nodes with strong or weak capabilities to play a role. Fog computing is a new generation of distributed computing, in line with the "decentralized" characteristics of the Internet. Since fog computing was introduced, several major technology companies such as ARM, Dell, Intel, and Microsoft have joined the concept camp and established the Open Fog Alliance. This non-profit organization aims to promote fog computing and facilitate the development of the Internet of Things.

Applications of Fog Computing

Fog computing is dominated by small clouds such as personal clouds, private clouds, and enterprise clouds. The mobility of fog computing is good. Cell phones and other mobile devices can communicate directly. The signal does not have to "travel" to the cloud or base stations. The final result of IoT development is to interconnect all electronic devices, mobile terminals, home appliances, etc. These devices are not only massive in number and widely distributed but also very different, which only fog computing can meet. Real-world needs provide development opportunities for fog computing to deploy many services, such as Telematics. Telematics requires rich connections and interactions, such as between car and cloud platform, car and car, car and people, car and road, and between devices in the car, etc. Fog computing can provide rich telematics services, such as infotainment, safety, traffic security, data analysis, and geographic analysis of the situation.

Fog computing can not only solve the problem of automation of connected devices, but more crucially, it requires a small amount of data transmission, which is conducive to improving local storage and computing capabilities, eliminating bottlenecks in data storage and transmission. When the calculation results of edge devices need decision-makers, fog computing is the "dominant" in Telematics. After all, cloud computing is "Too late (delay)."

When cloud computing and cloud computing have problems

Cloud computing and fog computing are more advanced concepts, but there are drawbacks. If prevention is not careful or not properly addressed, it will encounter "haze" turned into "haze computing." The first and foremost are privacy and security, which is one of the reasons for the slow development of indoor positioning technology UWB. In addition, as long as the network, there will be data security issues, such as hacking. Whether it is cloud computing or fog computing, networking will have the possibility of network delays and interruptions, and the service will be inaccessible; at the same time, due to a large amount of data, the issue of bandwidth cost is also a consideration, the scale of application data is too large and beyond the budget and then difficult to expand, the lack of workforce and other reasons are the root cause of haze computing.

Distributed haze computing forms a data transmission belt between different devices, which can effectively reduce network traffic and computational load accordingly and is one of the emerging technologies to alleviate today's information overload. Even though it may turn into a "haze," fog computing is still one of the current directions to solve the bottleneck of cloud computing.

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