Do you know what Fog Computing? The Internet of Things connects to the cloud

With the strong growth in the number of connected devices in the world, the supply of computational capacity becomes a challenge, creating the need for a new approach. In the short-term horizon, 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet worldwide, a market worth US$ 309 billion.

Fog Computing is the architecture that aims to reduce the amount of data sent to Cloud Data Centers, thus improving the response time for applications where speed becomes crucial.

Welcome to Fog Computing

Fog Computing is a decentralized computing infrastructure in which data, processing, storage and applications are efficiently distributed between the data source and the cloud.

It essentially extends cloud computing and services to the edge of the network, bringing the benefits and power of the cloud closer to where data is created and used.

In this model, computational capacity extends to network access layers, without overloading the Cloud. In the Fog Computing environment, processing intelligence is applied at a local network layer, in intermediate network nodes.

This means that, in the edge environment, intelligence and processing capacity are at points close to the devices (smartphones, tablets and sensors).

By using the Fog Computing architecture, it is possible to improve efficiency and reduce the amount of data transported to the cloud for processing, analysis and storage purposes. In addition to efficiency, this computational framework can also be applied for information security and compliance reasons.

Popular applications of Fog Computing include Smart Grid, Smart City, smart buildings, connected and autonomous cars, among other innovations.

>> Learn More: Information Security Challenges from the Cloud

The connection between Fog Computing, the cloud and Internet of Things (IoT)

The idea of ​​the term Fog, comes from the meteorological term for a cloud close to the ground, just like fog, Fog Computing focuses on the edge of the network.

At the layer where edge devices and sensors sit, data is generated and collected, however they lack the computing and storage resources needed to perform advanced analytics and tasks such as machine learning.

While cloud servers have the power to do this, they are often too far away to process the data and respond in the way expected by the Internet of Things. Additionally, having all endpoints connected and sending raw data to the cloud over the Internet can have privacy, security, and legal implications.

>> Learn More: Extending Business Intelligence Through the Cloud

In a fog computing environment, processing takes place through a smart device, or on a smart router or gateway, thus reducing the amount of data sent to the cloud. It is important to note that the Fog network complements, and does not replace, cloud computing.

Like cloud computing, Fog Computing will be key to the development of the Internet of Things, resulting in a lot of innovation and new products and services.

And to learn more about cloud computing and integration with new technologies, you need to keep following us through our blog and social networks: Facebook , Twitter and Linkedin .