Fog computing architecture as the extension of cloud computing

In the recent years, data explosion had impacted on IT infrastructure, leading to the emergence of cloud computing as a vital implementation in organisation. Inarguably, with IIoT and people interaction with IoT devices becoming more intensive through the introduction and innovation of web applications, the amount of data consumed globally is massive. The rapid growth of data shows no possibility of declining in the upcoming years, which is a bad news to organisation as they become unsure about the capabilities of the existing cloud computing in keeping up with data explosion. Subsequently, fog computing appears as one of the best solution that complement the now less competent cloud computing. This post explains fog computing architecture as the extension of cloud computing in dealing with data explosion.

Fog computing architecture

Primarily, the explanation of fog computing architecture can be divided into hierarchical fog computing architecture and layered fog computing architecture.

The hierarchical fog computing architecture is a three-layered architecture and can be viewed as in the figure below.

• The first layer consists of the IoT devices like smartphone, laptop, tablet and sensors. This devices senses, capture and transmit data to the second layer.
• The second layer or the fog layer which comprises of various network devices called fog nodes such as routers,  gateways, access points. Fog nodes functions to ensure services to the end devices and are able to  compute, transfer and temporarily store data.
• The third layer is the cloud layer. This layer includes servers and data center that are capable in storing massive data as well as have high capacity for data processing.

Meanwhile, the layered fog computing architecture is composed of six layers.

1. Physical and virtualisation layer

The first layer is the physical and virtualisation. This layers includes physical nodes and virtual nodes where multiple types of sensors are used to collect and transfer data through gateways to the upper layer for further processing.

2. Monitoring layer

In the monitoring layer, node monitoring occurs where tasks such as the amount of time, temperature and other physical properties being possessing by the node as well as the energy consumption and power consumption.

3. Pre-processing layer

Pre-processing layer involves activity related to data management particularly filtering and trimming. In this layer, data is filtered by removing data impurity and results in with only relevant data.

4. Temporary storage layer

Mark by its name, the temporary storage layer stores data for a short duration. This layer involves storage virtualisation like VSAN where data will be removed once it is transferred to the cloud.

5. Security layer

The security layer deals with data integrity, data encryption or decryption. In the layer, the security of data privacy is ensured including the use-based privacy, data-based privacy, and location-based privacy.

6. Transport layer

The transport layer functions to carry the secured pre-processed data to the cloud for further analysis and processing to generate more valuable data.

In summary, fog computing architecture consists of various layers that serve as an extension to cloud computing where these layers helps reduce the amount of data transported through the system thus enhances efficiency.

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4. Definition and categories of cloud computing