IoT and the Fog Computing Architecture

Last year I published an article on Fog Computing and decide to dive a little more into this exciting subject and share with you some more interesting insights. Fog Computing is real and we will start to see more press in the near future. According to MarketsAndMarkets, the market is expected to reach $203.48 million by 2022, up from $22.28 million in 2017. This new type of architecture could be the next big thing in the Internet of Things.  

IoT and the “foggy” architecture

Internet of Things is far larger than most people realize.  Fog computing is the architecture that fills the gaps between the cloud and the things, solving challenges associated with bandwidth, communication, and latency. There are several reasons to support this increasing technology:

We have technical reasons:

• Distributed architecture – Fog Computing is known for its efficiency and zero downtime and manages to deliver the core IoT requirements such as storage and computation.
• SCALE (Security-Cognition-Agility-Latency-Efficiency) – These are the capabilities that place fog computing on a new level. Internet of Things requires excellent connectivity, something “foggy” architecture can provide.
• Immersive distribution – Fog computing can correlate not only with the cloud but with other connected devices, being able to provide resources throughout the network, not just the edge.

And we have business reasons:

• Costs – Every business owner is thinking about the costs, and how to minimize but still keep the business competitive. Fog computing is a cost-efficient solution that enables efficient use of the IoT.
• Collaboration – It is a common framework for communication and collaboration, keeps your IoT team connected, all of the time
• Scalability – It is also known for its shared and spread nature. In simpler terms, the architecture shreds across devices and spreads across clouds, enabling highly functioning internal business services

Security and the “foggy” architecture

Security is paramount for every company, and business owners have already started to design strategies to create a highly secure environment. One of the most significant advantages of fog computing is Security.

Last year we witnessed how an army of millions of IoT devices was hacked, exposing more than 2 billion records, while leaving behind significant financial and reputation losses. Computing provides the perfect cybersecurity architecture that can make the IoT landscape much safer.

• Ensures a high-level of protection – Some of the IoT devices operate with minimal resources, leaving them vulnerable to sophisticated cyber-attacks. Fog Computing is built specifically for the cloud-of-things IoT security, it can ensure protection even for the smallest connected devices, such as a smart camera.
• Keep security credentials and software updates – Fog nodes keep security credentials and software up to date on a large number of connected devices.
• Monitor distributed systems – It can closely monitor all the distributed systems and devices and identify even hard-to-detect types of attacks.
• Enable incident response without interruption – Probably one of the most important advantages is that fog computing can detect and solve certain types of attacks without disrupting your business services.  

Internet of Things is constantly expanding its roots, empowering fog computing for growing, usage and importance. As I see it, the fog will rise above the cloud, unlocking new doors for the mighty IoT.