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Features, Challenges and Issues of Fog Computing

This document provides a review of fog computing, including its architecture, applications, challenges, and integration with other technologies like cloud computing. The authors discuss fog computing's features and advantages for extending cloud services to network edges. They also examine issues like privacy, security, management and networking. Finally, the document reviews how fog computing has been merged with IoT, cloud computing and other techniques to improve performance and address limitations.
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
51 views

Features, Challenges and Issues of Fog Computing

This document provides a review of fog computing, including its architecture, applications, challenges, and integration with other technologies like cloud computing. The authors discuss fog computing's features and advantages for extending cloud services to network edges. They also examine issues like privacy, security, management and networking. Finally, the document reviews how fog computing has been merged with IoT, cloud computing and other techniques to improve performance and address limitations.
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Muneer Bani Yassein,

WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on COMPUTERS Omar Alzoubi, Saif Rawasheh,


DOI: 10.37394/23205.2020.19.12 Farah Shatnawi, Ismail Hmeidi

Features, Challenges and Issues of Fog Computing:


A Comprehensive Review

MUNEER BANI YASSEIN, OMAR ALZOUBI, SAIF RAWASHEH,


FARAH SHATNAWI, ISMAIL HMEIDI
Computer Science Department
Jordan University of Science and Technology
Irbid
JORDAN
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected]

Abstract: - Fog computing is a promising technology that is used by many organizations and end-users.
It has characteristics and advantages that offer services such as com puting, storage, communication,
and application services. It facilitates these services to end-users and allows to increase the number of
devices that can connect to the network. In this paper, we provide a survey of Fog com puting
technology in term s of its architecture, features , advantages and disadva ntages. We provide a
comparison of this model with Cloud Computing, Mobile-Edge Computing, and Cloudlet Computing.
We also present challen ges and issues that face F og Computing such as privacy and security, co ntrol
and management, fog networking a nd task scheduling. Finally, we di scuss aspects of Fog computing
security and the benefits of integration between Fog computing and other techniques like Internet of
Things and Cloud Computing.

Key-Words: - Fog computing, Fog Architecture, Security issues, Merging idea, Privacy issues, Control and
management issues, Security Aspects
Received: December 1, 2019. Revised: March 31, 2020. Accepted: April 11, 2020. Published: April 30, 2020.

1 Introduction preprocessing layer, temporary storage lay er,


security layer, and transport lay er [5, 6]. There are
Fog computing is new prom ising highly virtualized several applications that can benefi t from Fog
computing model that extends the services of cloud computing, such as augmented reality, smart homes,
computing to the edge network services [1, 2, 3, and smart grid, health data management, smart factories,
4]. It is suitable for use in wireless sensor networks and smart vehicles [4, 7].
(WSNs) and IoT [3]. It also supports heterogeneity
of appliances, such as F og appliances, where thes e The challenges and iss ues that ar e facing Fog
appliances are end-users, switches, edge routers, and computing include; data protection, malicious Fog
access points [1]. Fog com puting provides many node, detection of intru sions., and Man-in-the-
services to the network such as computing, Middle attack, besides others[ 1, 8]. Security is one
application services, location awareness and quality- of the most challenging issues that face Fog
of service (QoS) for streaming and real-ti me computing [6]. It includes author ization and
applications, storage, networking services between authentication, network security , access control
end devices and traditional cloud com puting data mechanism, intrusion detection system (IDS),
centers [1, 2]. privacy, and virtualization [30 ]. Many researchers
tried to integrate Fog computing with different types
The basic layers of Fog com puting architecture are; of computing such as Cloud Com puting. The aim is
physical and virtualization lay er, monitoring layer,

E-ISSN: 2224-2872 86 Volume 19, 2020


Muneer Bani Yassein,
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on COMPUTERS Omar Alzoubi, Saif Rawasheh,
DOI: 10.37394/23205.2020.19.12 Farah Shatnawi, Ismail Hmeidi

to enhance perform ance and tackle the li mitations and its appli cability. Finally, they mentioned some
with these te chniques. For exa mple, Mahmud et al. challenges and how to solve them in order to
in [9] merged the F og with Cloud C omputing to maintain a sustained solution. Exam ples of such
solve the latency sensitivity problem in healthcare challenges included run ning program in a Fog
application of IoT. The merged approach is called computing environment, foretell user requirem ents,
Cloud-Fog Interoperability. Similarly, An et al. [ 10] and network energy consumption. Similarly, Aazam
integrated the Fog, IoT, and artificial intelligence et al. in [13] explained an integrated sy stem that
(AI). They aimed to make the AI ser vices clever, combines IoT and Cloud com puting that can use
reliable and faster than th e first generation of Io T resources optimally and effectively. They presented
services. The merged approach is called Elastic-IoT- an architecture of the technolog y for data
Fog (EiF). Moreover, Munir et al. [ 11] integrated transmission form IoT to the Cloud. This call it
three techniques to incr ease scalab ility, sensor Smart Gateway with Fog computing. The main issue
energy, latency, response time, and performance in was on how to preprocess and trim the data before
IoT applications. This paper presents a review of transmitting to the cloud. They evaluated and tested
Fog computing, its architecture, appl ications that this technology using bulk-data upload delay,
may benefit of. It Also illustrates the challenges and upload delay, bulk- data synchronization delay,
issues that are facing Fog co mputing. Finally, we synchronization delay, and jitter. Moreover, Luan et
discuss aspects of Fog computing security and al. in [14] presented an overview of the Fog
present the advantages of integrating the Fog with computing techniques. They discussed the
other techniques. The rest of this paper is organized architecture used and issue s facing Fog co mputing.
as follows: Section 2 provides and disc usses related These issues included; communications between
works. Section 3 presents a comparison between mobile and Fog, comm unications between cloud
Fog computing & other types of such as Cloud. and Fog, and communications between Fogs.
Section 4 describes the Fog com puting architecture. Finally, they presented challenges facing the Fog in
Section 5 presents pri mary Fog computing features. the deployment proces s, such as application,
Section 6 explains some applications that may scaling, and placement. Additionally, Aazam et al.
benefit from the Fog. Section 7 il lustrates the in [15] described the m echanism of how the Fog
challenges and issues facing this technology. works and how the Fo g can help IoT. The y
Section 8 discusse s aspects of Fog co mputing presented a system that in tegrated IoT with Cloud
security. Section 9 presenst the benefits of Computing, named COT. Both Cloud and Fog
integrating Fog computing and other techniques. computing have co mmon characteristics, such as
Finally, Section 1 0 concludes the primary findings data resources, application, storage, infrastructure,
from each subject investigated and future work. and computation. However, there is a difference
between them in accessing the under lying nodes.
2 Related Work Osanaiye et al. [16] presented some applications of
Fog computing. The appl ications are divided into
In this section, we present so me of previous
two categories, which a re real-time (healthcare,
research related to Fog com puting in terms of its
gaming) and non-real tim e applications (smart city,
definition, architecture, applications, issues and
smart grid). They discussed privacy and security
challenges, and efforts of integrating Fog computing
issues that are facing Fog computing. These include;
with other computing techniques.
(1) shareability and distributed characteristic. (2)
For example, Varshney et al. [12 ] studied and selection the ciphertext a ttack. (3) potential atta ck
reviewed different dimensions of a sy stem nature. (4) privacy leakage. (5) data protection. (6)
consisting of three integrated computing techniques vulnerable of sensor netw orks against the threats.
that are Fog, Cloud, and Edge. They discussed the Mansouri et al. [17] presented a mechanism called a
architecture, characteristics of the application, and near-optimal resource allocation mechanism, that
abstractions of the system. They demonstrated some can be used for allocation of resources to users of
new capabilities of two types of lay ers, the physical IoT. This is done in a hierarchical co mputing
and application lay ers, in terms of privacy paradigm way that contains the services of Fog and
sensitivity, and mobility of the two lay ers. Then, remote Cloud computing. They showed that the
they discussed the protent ional of Fog computing usage of Fog com puting services can provide

E-ISSN: 2224-2872 87 Volume 19, 2020


Muneer Bani Yassein,
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on COMPUTERS Omar Alzoubi, Saif Rawasheh,
DOI: 10.37394/23205.2020.19.12 Farah Shatnawi, Ismail Hmeidi

benefits to users after using t he proposed provided an overview of two main challenges in Fog
mechanism. Similarly, Jalali et al. in [18] used a computing, which are privacy and security concerns.
method that merges between microgrids and Fo g Then, they mentioned some issues, chal lenges, and
computing to reduce en ergy exhaustion that IoT research trends of privac y and security for the Fog
applications are concerned. Microgri ds and Fog computing. These issues are trust, a uthentication,
computing can complement each othe r to achieve secure communications, end user privacy, and
green IoT. The green IoT means that consuming of malicious attacks. While the challenges that fa ced
energy is at the lowest level. the Fog computing are F og forensics, malicious or
malfunctioning fog nodes, malicious insider attack,
Yannuzzi et al. in [19] presented some of the main
and mutual authentication am ong dynamic fog
challenges facing IoT, these include reliable control
nodes and end-users. The rese arch trends of Fog
and actuation, mobility, and scalability. They used
computing are privacy preservation, a uthentication
Fog computing as an app ropriate platform for IoT.
and key agreement, intrusion detection s ystems,
They described the ch allenges that included
dynamic join and leave of Fog node , and cross-
mobility, reliable control and actuation, and data
border issue and fog forensic. Yi et al. [39]
aggregation, which are IoT aspects. One of the
presented an overview of the promising Fog
challenges for m obility is how to be able to keep
computing paradigm. They have discussed se curity
computing and storage res ources near to the things.
and privacy issues that faced this computing
While the challenges for reliable control and
paradigm. The security and privacy issues are 1)
actuation is the lack of computational power in
Trust. 2) Authentication. 3) Network Security. 4)
sensing processes. Finally, the challenges for data
Secure Data Storage. 5) Secure and Private Data
aggregation are how to deal with a massive amount
Computation. 6) Privacy . 7) Access Control. 8)
of data that need to processed and aggregated.
Intrusion Detection. Zhang et al. [ 40] illustrated
Aazam et al. [20] presented an attracti ve task for security and trust issues t hat the Fog faces. They
IoT and Cloud co mputing applications. This task is have also mentioned research trends, open
called offloading task. They presented an overview challenges and future topics for trust and security
of the taxonomy of the Fog, Cloud co mputing, and issues. The a rchitecture of the Fog com puting that
IoT. Then, the y explained the middleware they mentioned in their paper consists of three
technologies that will be benefiting in cloud-IoT in layers; the Cloud, the Fog, and th e Edge. The
terms of the uploading. These t echnologies are research trends and open challenges were 1) Trusted
Cloudlet, mobile edge computing, micro data center, execution environment. 2) Trust and security during
nano data center, and delay -tolerant network. Also, Fog orchestration. 3) Acc ess control. 4) Collusion
they discussed some of the criter ia used in attack. 5) D ata-dependent security and context-
offloading, such as accessibility, load balancing, and aware security. 6) Service trust. While future topics
privacy and security. Finally, they mentioned some of their paper are: 1) Tr ust management models. 2)
of the research challeng es in the Fog com puting Identification of trusted no des. 3) Secure
domain. One example of these res earch challenges orchestration.
is knowing the appropriate am ount of resources that Table 1 shows techniques, applications, challenges,
will be requi red for the j obs that are executed at a privacy, and security issues of the previous studies
specific location. about Fog computing are presented.
Skarlat et al. [21] illustrated a framework used for
providing the Fog resources. This fr amework is
called a Fog computing framework. They presented
an optimization problem that aim s to supply
utilization for Fog computing available resources in
terms of del ay-sensitivity. They showed that the
framework helps in decreasing the percentage of
delay to 39% when co mpared with the traditional
methods. This percentage means that the time of the
round-trip is decreasing. Mukherjee et al. [ 38]
Table. 1 shows techniques, applications, challenges, privacy and security issues of Fog computing studies.

E-ISSN: 2224-2872 88 Volume 19, 2020


Muneer Bani Yassein,
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on COMPUTERS Omar Alzoubi, Saif Rawasheh,
DOI: 10.37394/23205.2020.19.12 Farah Shatnawi, Ismail Hmeidi

Ref. Objective of their Framework or Challenges & Computing Applications that Results
study approach used Issues type mentioned
or future topics
[12] They study and - 1) Can run th e 1) Fog 1) Urban -
review the different program in fo g 2) Cloud Surveillance
dimensions of a computing 3) Edge 2) Smart Power
system consisting 2) Foretell the Grid
of three techn iques users' 3) Drones for A sset
that are Fog, Cloud, requirements Monitoring
and Edge 3) Consume the
energy in th e
network.
[13] They explain the Smart Gateway Data trimming Fog computing - After using the
IoT and merge with with Fog Smart Gateway
Cloud computing computing with Fog computing
to 1) improve and and CoT, it
provide to the provides rich and
users. 2) Use many services to
resources in an users.
optimal and
effective manner
[20] They present an Offloading task Knows the 1) Cloud - Decrease power
attractive task for appropriate computing consumption after
IoT and Cloud amount of 2) Fog performing this task
computing resources that computing
applications will be r equired
for the jobs tha t
are executed at a
specific location.
[21] They illustrate an Fog computing Delay-sensitive Fog computing - Usage of this
architecture of this framework for fog framework after
framework used for computing applies the id ea of
providing the fog available the optimization
resources resources problem, the
percentage of delay
decreases to 39%
when compared
with the traditional
methods.

[22] They study the Global Data 1) Scalability Cloud 1) Put the sensors in -
essential Plane (GDP) 2) Privacy and computing building, homes,
characteristics of Security etc.
the IoT to prevent 3) Modeling 2) Real-time
the scaling of the 4) Latency applications
GDP. 5) Bandwidth
[23] They present the Data Interplay - 1) Cloud - This approach is
data interplay approach computing flexible and can be
approach for the 2) Fog reconfigured to run
Fog of Things and computing other scenarios in
addresses the 3) Edge IoT. Also, this
problems between computing approach can
the infrastructures handle the big
of Cloud and Fog. volume generation
between the
infrastructures of
Cloud and Fog.

E-ISSN: 2224-2872 89 Volume 19, 2020


Muneer Bani Yassein,
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on COMPUTERS Omar Alzoubi, Saif Rawasheh,
DOI: 10.37394/23205.2020.19.12 Farah Shatnawi, Ismail Hmeidi

[24] They study the - 1) Less contro l 1) Cloud 1) High-quality -


effect of the over three things, computing camera
extended cloud on which are the 2) Fog 2) GPS
two things: data, software, computing 3) Barometer
1) current and hardware. 3) Edge
communication. 2) 2) The cos t is computing
Models of the important in case
cloud networking of the clou d
service. failure.
3) Jamming
attacks
4) Weak
authentication
[25] They are explained IoT ehealth 1) Data 1) Cloud 1) Healthcare 2) -
the enable to apply ecosystem management computing Medicine
the IoT in ma ny 2) Scalability 2) Fog 3) Ambient
applications, such 3) Regulations computing Assisted Living
as healthcare and 4)Interoperability 4) IoT Medication
medicine and device-network- 5) Smart Medical
mention some human interfaces Implants
challenges facing 5) Security
the IoT. 6) Privacy
[38] They are - 1) Trust Fog computing - -
overviewed about 2) Authentication
two concerns and 3) Secure
terms of Fog communications
computing, which 4)End user's
are privacy and privacy
security concerns, 5) malicious
some issues and attacks
challenges.
[39] They are presented - 1) Trust. Fog computing - -
an overview ab out 2)
promising Authentication.
computing 3) Network
paradigm, which Security.
called Fog 4) Secure Data
computing. Then, Storage.
they are mentioned 5) Secure and
the security and Private Data
privacy issues that Computation.
faced this 6) Privacy.
computing 7) Access
paradigm Control. 8)
Intrusion
Detection.
[40] They are illustrated - 1) Trusted Fog computing Future topics: -
the Fog computing execution 1) Trust
architecture and the environment. management
security and trust 2) Trust and models.
issues that the F og security during 2) Identification of
is faced. Then, they Fog trusted nodes.
have mentioned the orchestration. 3) 3) Secure
research trends Access control. orchestration
open challenges 4) Collusion
and future to pics attack.
for trust and 5) Data-
security issues dependent
security and
context-aware
security.
6) Service trust.

E-ISSN: 2224-2872 90 Volume 19, 2020


Muneer Bani Yassein,
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on COMPUTERS Omar Alzoubi, Saif Rawasheh,
DOI: 10.37394/23205.2020.19.12 Farah Shatnawi, Ismail Hmeidi

3 Fog Computing Vs. Other Types Proximity, Access Mechanisms, and Internode
Communication [37].
There are three technologi es that have similarities
and differences with Fog computing. These Table. 3 Com parison between Fog computing,
technologies are Edge Com puting, Cloudlet, and Mobile-Edge Computing and Cloudlet Computing.
Micro-data center [36]. Despite th e similarities Fog Mobile-Edge Cloudlet
between the Fog computing and Cloud Computing, Computing Computing Computing
there are many differences am ong them, such as Node devices Routers Servers Data Center
Switches running in in a box
Scheduling tasks, latency, determining the schedule Access base stations
computational tasks location, in dependence, Points
Mobility and others [6, 32 ]. These are shown in Gateways
Node location Varying Radio Local/Outdo
Table 2. between End Network or
Devices and Controller/Ma installation
Table. 2 Com paring between Fog and Cloud Cloud cro Base
computing. Station
Software Fog Mobile Cloudlet
Fog Cloud Architecture Abstraction Orchestrator Agent based
Layer based based
Scheduling Context Medium High low
Complex Simple
tasks awareness
latency Proximity One or One Hop One Hop
Multiple
The latency of the The latency of the
Hops
application is application is Access Bluetooth, Mobile Wi-Fi
unpridicable pridicable Mechanisms Wi-Fi, Networks
Mobile
schedule Networks
computational Difficult Not difficult Internode Supported Partial Partial
tasks location Communicati
Independence on
The owner fr om Form one
more organizations organization
Mobility
4 Fog computing Design
The applications The applications are
Fog computing has an architecture t hat contains
are deployed in deployed in only one several layers. There is a consensus on the num ber
defferent nodes cloud at a time of layers, which are six lay ers. These lay ers are
Location physical and virtualization lay er, monitoring layer,
awareness Yes No pre-processing layer, temporary storage lay er,
Deployment security layer, and transport lay er [5, 6, and 26] as
Distributed Centralized shown in Figure 1. The following describes the
Security function of each layer.
measures Hard to define Defined
Distance
between client One hop Multiple hops
and server
Working Outdoor (e.g., Warehouse-size
environment Streets, gardens) or building with air
indoor conditioning systems

Attack on data High probability Less probability

Table 3 shows the co mparison between Fog


computing, Mobile-Edge Computing and Cloudlet
Computing based on Node devices, Node location,
Software Architecture, Context awar eness,
Fig.1 The architecture of the Fog computing

E-ISSN: 2224-2872 91 Volume 19, 2020


Muneer Bani Yassein,
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on COMPUTERS Omar Alzoubi, Saif Rawasheh,
DOI: 10.37394/23205.2020.19.12 Farah Shatnawi, Ismail Hmeidi

Physical and virtualization layer. This layer that are characterized by high qualit y, high data
includes several kinds of nodes such as virtual transfer rate, low latency [4, 14, and 28], 2)
sensor networks, virtual nodes, and ph ysical nodes. reducing the back and forth movement between the
These nodes are controll ed based on the needed cloud and the users of the mobile devices; which
requirements and their types. The aim of these lead to im proving network efficiency and reducing
nodes is sen ding collected data to the monitoring power consumption [4, 14], 3) appropriate for tasks
layer and other upper layers. The data then underg o and queries that happens in IoT [ 4], 4) Fog
more filtering and preprocessing steps [5, 6, and computing allows increasing the number of devices
26]. connected to the network [ 6], 6) Saving the
Monitoring Layer. Many monitoring tasks occurs bandwidth; data is proc essed locally instead of
at this layer [5, 6, and 26]. These tasks are, usage of sending and processing it in t he cloud [6], 7)
the resources, check for nodes availability, task Supporting many applications with latency
management of no des, monitoring the am ount of requirements as low as possible, such as augm ented
energy that is effectively consumed by the nodes. reality and gaming [39].
Pre-processing Layer. The aim of thi s layer is to There are many difficulties and disadvantages of
analyze the data that ar e collected in the first lay er. Fog computing, the m ost prominent and m ost
The data then preprocessed, trimmed, and filtered important includes; 1) c ompanies that use Fog
[5, 6, and 26]. computing need to buy many expensive devices
Temporary storage Layer. This lay er is used to such as gateway s, routers, and hubs [29], 2) Very
store the data after filtering and preprocessing complex system; due to u sing lot of nodes, and it
processes in the previous layer [5, 6, and 26]. needs another extra layer compared with the Cloud
Security Layer. This layer is responsible for data that has two processe s that are storage systems and
protection. Techniques that applied are applied in data processing [29], 3) It is less scalable in terms of
this layer include decry ption and encryption, and the number of devices a nd services provided in
checking data integrity [5, 6, and 26]. comparison with Cloud computing, [29].
Transport Layer. The transport lay er is used to 6 Fog Computing Applications
send the processed data to th e cloud. The data will Fog computing maybe applied in many applications
then be available to en d users for e xtraction and such as urb an surveillance, smart p ower grids,
establishing many useful services to users [5, 6, and drones for assisting in monitoring [ 12], shopping
26]. centers, scenery parks, inter-state buses [14], smart
5 Fog Computing: Characteristics, homes, smart vehicles, health data m anagement [7],
Advantages and Disadvantages healthcare, augmented reality, caching and
The characteristics of Fog com puting may include preprocessing [4], real-time applications (i.e. video
the following; 1) deployment and di stribution of streaming, and gaming) and near-real-ti me
services and applications anywhere on the network applications (i.e. s mart cities) [16] smart
[6], 2) publishing and distributio n of nodes at environments, vehicular Fog computing web
different locations [6], 3) The possibility of dealing optimization [27], and mobile big data analy tics
with different service providers and working at [31].
different areas at the same time [6], 4) Abilit y to We discuss two applications that are supported by
handle and process d ata that is within the range of Fog computing as examples.
end devices [6], 5) Abilit y to deal with different Augmented Reality (AR). AR is an application that
devices and different platforms [6], 6) The data in can be run on m any devices like tablets
Fog computing is secure and private by applying ,smartphones, and sm art glasses. It needs high
many techniques, such as encry ption and isolation power to run the video and high bandwidth to send
[27], 7) The Fog nodes do not consu me a lot of the data [31 ]. The tim e for processing and sending
energy; due to the nodes being dispersed in the the data m ust be as low as possible. The Fog
network [27]. computing is able to provide both; it maximizes
Fog computing technology increasingly being throughput and minimizes the latency in b oth
adopted, and this is due to a nu mber of advantages processing and sending the data [31].
that it offers that may include; 1) providing services Mobile Big Data Analytics. It is an important topic
for big data architectures in both cloud and m obile

E-ISSN: 2224-2872 92 Volume 19, 2020


Muneer Bani Yassein,
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on COMPUTERS Omar Alzoubi, Saif Rawasheh,
DOI: 10.37394/23205.2020.19.12 Farah Shatnawi, Ismail Hmeidi

cloud, since the latenc y in both are high. Fog authentication problem in Fog network, a public key
computing can support fl exible resources for huge infrastructure (PKI) maybe used [36, 41] . Also,
systems without facing this latency issue [31]. advance encryption standa rd (AES) maybe used. It
is a suitable algorithm for fog network in term of
7 Challenges and Issues of Fog encryption of data. So, it can be used in any fog
computing network to ensure data security [36]. In
Computing order to reduce and mitigate the sec urity threats,
In this sectio n, we will il lustrate in brief so me of
reducing data theft fro m inside the network is
challenges and issues facing Fog computing.
necessary. Components of both Fog and cloud
Security and Privacy. Fog computing devices face
computing can be used together. In t his combined
some security and privacy issues. This is because it
solution, decoy methods and behavior profiling can
is spread in locations a nd are not close to the
be used [36].
locations that are monitored and protected [ 1]. For
Control and Management Issues. In Fog
this reason, it is vul nerable to different types of
computing, the nature of the nodes is m obility; so
attacks. Fog computing is also vul nerable to m any
the changes are frequent which lead to some metrics
security attacks becaus e it is deve loped upon
to also change like latency , storage, bandwidth, and
traditional networking components, not the m odern
computation [27]. The platform is different from
components [33].
user to use r; so the resources are run in a
Fog computing may suffer from the following types
heterogeneous way [27].
of attacks; Data hijack, and eavesdropping [1]. Man-
in-the-middle attack; penetration of fog devices that Fog Networking. The Fog network is
work as a gateway [1, 8, and 41] , Malicious attack; heterogeneous in nature, because it is placed on the
the data in th e Fog nodes are not fair and forged by Internet edge. Therefore, controlling and m anaging
a malicious node [ 8]. and Denial of services; there some services such as maintaining connectivity is
are many services and requests in the Fog. not easy. In order to provide these servic es in
Therefore, it is difficult for the Fog in dealing with flexible way, there are two emerging techniques that
huge number of services at the sam e time. So, the can used. Th ese are network function virtualization
network becomes busy and does not provi de (NFV), and software-defined networking (SDN)
services for end users [2 7]. It also suffers fro m [31].
Rogue Node Detection; a malicious node in IoT that Task Scheduling. The scheduling of tasks is not
collect the data and ex change it for malicious easy in the Fog. This is because the ta sk can move
purposes [34]. between various physical devices like fog nodes,
Fog computing also suffers from problems in data back-end cloud servers and client devices [32].
protection; due to the lac k of resources that help to Heterogeneous. The nodes in Fog network are
encrypt or decrypt the data [8]. It has also Issues in heterogeneous, because no gua rantee or
data management; where there is a need to ensure confirmation that the sa me sources exist in each
and check if the node provides and support the same node [32].
services for t he users [8]. Besides, there is Privacy Power Consumption. Because the huge num ber
location issue; that is if the location of IoT devices of nodes in the Fog network, it consu mes a lot of
is known, the data in it can be stolen [ 34]. Fog power. In order to reduce power consumption, there
computing has also the i ssue of Authentication in are many effective protocols that can be used like
the network [41]. effective filtering CoAP, and sam pling techniques
There are a number of s ecurity solutions for fog [35].
computing issues. One solution is privacy-
preserving Fog com puting. It ensures that data is 8 Aspects of fog computing Security
secured between end-user devices and Fog network. Fog computing faces s ecurity issues a nd problems
This is done in five step s as a follows; 1) collect as mentioned in previous section. Ther e are some
secure data and extract f eatures from it. 2) Data important aspects that se curity techniques need to
fuzzing. 3) Segregation. 4) Public Key Infrastructure handle in thi s regard. In this section, we present
should be Implemented. 5) Sending the segregated these aspects and some brief details of each of them
data to Fo g nodes. [ 36]. In order to solve t he as shown in Fig. 2 [30].

E-ISSN: 2224-2872 93 Volume 19, 2020


Muneer Bani Yassein,
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on COMPUTERS Omar Alzoubi, Saif Rawasheh,
DOI: 10.37394/23205.2020.19.12 Farah Shatnawi, Ismail Hmeidi

We present next an overview of so me of the efforts


of integrating Fog computing with IoT and Cloud.
9.1 Fog computing with IoT
There are many limitations and challenges that IoT
face such as latency constraints, network bandwidth
constraints, resource-constrained devices,
uninterrupted services, and IoT security challenges,
as shown in Table 4. In order to mitigate these
limitations and challenges, Fog com puting can be a
suitable technique. In Fog computing, analyzing and
managing the data operations are perform ed near to
end-users, thus solving the latenc y constraints
limitation of IoT [ 6]. Likewise, Fog co mputing
allows data processing based on the application's
Fig.2 Aspects of Fog Computing Security requirements. This process reduces the data that is
sent to the cl oud and the bandwidth of the network
Authorization and Authentication. This is an is saved [6].
important issue for Fog computing. Because the Fog Table 4 Limitations of IoT and Fog solutions
is an open network that enable a hug e number of
Limitations of IoT Solutions of Fog
devices to connect to the network. The definition of Latency Constraints Fog computing is performing all
each of them is as follows; Authorization referring the operations near to end-users.
to the “who is who?” and the Authentication Network Bandwidth The data processing is enabled and
Constraints performed based on the
referring to the “who can do what?” [30]. applications needed. So, the
Network security. The network acts as a bridge bandwidth of the network is
between components, such as end nodes, l ocal reduced.
infrastructure, and core infrastructure. If the network Resource-Constrained It used to run operations that need
Devices a huge amount of resources. So,
ensures the security between these co mponents, the costs and power consumption are
whole system will be also secure [30]. reduced.
Access control mechanism. There is a low Uninterrupted Services It runs indep endently to make the
services in the network
difference between the acce ss control and the continuously.
authorization. Access control guaranteese for each IoT Security The Fog computing plays as a act
node the right to obtain the authorization [30]. Challenges the proxy for devices that have not
enough security.
Intrusion Detection System (IDS). The IDS warns
the administrator of the s ystem about attacks on the
network and allows to protect the system [30].
Privacy. The privacy is an important issue, and this 9.2 Fog computing with Cloud computing
can be; “privacy of services used”, “privacy of
location”, and “privacy of data and inform ation” There are many limitations and is sues that face the
[30]. integration of Fog computing in domains like IoT in
Virtualization. The virtualization is a neces sary Healthcare and Cloud Computing. These lim itations
mechanism in a network that allows t o check and can be handled as shown in Table 5.
ensure smooth working of system security [30]. The integration between Fog and Cloud is a possible
solution to address the problems and issues that face
9 Integrating between Fog computing IoT in Healthcare [9]. Th ese problems are uneven
with other techniques data load, diverse user e xpectations, heterogeneity
of the applications, and latency sensitivity. The
It is acknowledged that there are some benefits of
main aim of this merging is to construct solutions to
merging between the Fo g computing with other
diverse applications, suc h as machine learning,
techniques. However, there are some challenges that
sensors, and reco mmender systems [9]. Despite
need to be a ddressed before the merging process.
these pros, t here are challenges for t his merging

E-ISSN: 2224-2872 94 Volume 19, 2020


Muneer Bani Yassein,
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on COMPUTERS Omar Alzoubi, Saif Rawasheh,
DOI: 10.37394/23205.2020.19.12 Farah Shatnawi, Ismail Hmeidi

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Muneer Bani Yassein,
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on COMPUTERS Omar Alzoubi, Saif Rawasheh,
DOI: 10.37394/23205.2020.19.12 Farah Shatnawi, Ismail Hmeidi

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