FOG Computing

Internet of Things (IoT)

• Connects internet devices – “things” (tablets, sensors, gateways,
mobile-phones) to enable new forms of communication
between things and people and between the IoTs themselves
• These connections create a network of IoTs
• This poses new challenges to the ways things communicate with
each other and with people and the way data are manipulated
once they are generated at the edges of the network
• How, what data are transmitted over the network?
• When, where data are processed or stored ?

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 What is It? [Cisco 2015]
• Ιntroduced by Cisco, a bridge between IoTs and the Cloud
• FOG extends cloud to be closer to things that produce data
• Analyze IoT data closer to where its collected so as to
minimize latency and processing load on cloud
– Any device with computing, storage, network connectivity can be a FOG node
– Can be deployed anywhere (Factory floor, vehicle, human body, etc)

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 Cloud and IoT: Fog can develop anywhere
in-between the two

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 Why FOG, What it means to Business?
• IoT speeds up awareness and response to events
• By the time data makes its way to the cloud for
analysis, the opportunity to act might be gone
• Faster responses can improve output, service
quality, safety
• Todays cloud models are not always designed for
the volume, variety and speed of data
– Moving all data to the cloud for analysis would slow
down processing, responses, takes bandwidth and is
expensive
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 More issues
• Despite Cloud’s advantages, health care, businesses,
government, military organizations and entities that
manage sensitive or classified data are reluctant to adopt
cloud based solutions due to security risks of transferring
data over the Internet
• Certain functions are naturally more advantageous to
carry out in Fog while others are better suited to cloud
• Software To Data Approach: bring software to the data
rather than transferring data to the cloud
– Transfer analysis results to the cloud
• FOG addresses this problem as well

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 What you get ?
• FOG filters and analyzes the most time intensive data at
the network edge close to where it is generated
• Milliseconds matter when trying to prevent
manufacturing line shutdowns and make the difference
between averting disaster and a cascading system failure
• Benefits include
– Greater business agility, security
– Deeper insights, improved privacy
– Lower operating cost (bandwidth, storage, processing)
– Sends data loads to cloud only for storage and further data
analysis (big data analysis)

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 Application Areas
• Smart cities: collect data on city activities e.g. traffic (change
signals on surveillance of incoming traffic to prevent accidents
or reduce congestion. Data could also be sent to the cloud for
longer-term analytics)
• Wearable Technology: data from wearable sensors need to be
processed locally to inform user and also communicated to
the cloud
• Wellbeing: monitor environmental conditions in house, health
status, in house operations for improving the quality of living
especially for elderly, disabled
• Industry 4.0: a sensor on a critical machine sends readings
associated with imminent failure
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 What happens in Fog/Cloud?
• Fog Nodes: micro data centers at network edge
– Like small clouds: cloudlets
– Intelligent controllers and gateways collect data from devices
– Receive feeds from IoTs using a protocol in real-time
– Run IoT apps for real-time control, context processing, data analytics
– Provide transient storage
– Send periodic data summaries to the cloud
• The cloud: public, private cloud etc.
– Receives and archives data summaries from Fog nodes
– Performs data analytics to gain business insight
– Can send new application rules to Fog nodes based on these
insights, new business operation plans etc.

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 Cloud vs FOG [Chiang 2016]
• Fog and Cloud will co-exist and work together
• FOG will carry-out substantial amount of storage at or near end-
user rather than on large scale data center
• FOG will carry-out substantial amount of communication at or
near the end-user rather than all routed through the backbone
network
• FOG will carry-our substantial amount of management, control
and configuration at or near the end-user rather than on large
scale servers
• The decision on what functions move to Cloud or keep at FOG
nodes is not always easy, depends on application
• FOG and Cloud are inder-dependent and mutually beneficial
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 Fog Architecture (by Cisco)

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 Example Architecture
FOG NODE

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 Security, Privacy and Trust
• While FOG may enhance security, it presents new security
challenges
• User authentication at IoTs and gateways is an issue
– Each IoT has an IP address
– Easier to hack FOG nodes and IoTs
– Malicious users can read/replace/tamper IoTs and their readings
(e.g. smart meters installed at consumers house), or use consumer
information for profit
• In large networks, probably many un-trustworthy users 
clients don’t trust each other, or are not willing to participate
• More issues: Distributed control in a decentralized, mobile
crowd of IoTs
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 FOG Reference Architecture (RA)
• The means of describing and understanding the requirements
of a domain where the architecture applies
• Proposed by OpenFog consortium: tech industry, research
and academic institutions (est. 2015), still incomplete …
• Fog RA should support at/near end-users
– Low latency storage
– Computation to avoid latency/network costs
– Management, network measurement, control, configuration
– Allow analytics results to be securely copied to backend cloud
– Business deployment

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 Principles (Pillars) of FOG RA
1. Security: end-to-end, node and network security
2. Scalability: nodes, networks, storage and all services are scalable
without disrupting system performance
3. Openness: nodes info and functionality is transparent to applications,
nodes can be created anywhere and be discovered / connected /
used, while ensuring security/safety/privacy
4. Autonomy: no single point of failure
5. Programmability: nodes can be reprogrammed or updated
6. Reliability: high availability (uptime)
7. Agility: transform data into actionable insights, quickly respond to
changes
8. Hierarchy: not prerequisite, resources can be seen as a logical
hierarchy based on the functional requirements of the IoT system
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 FOG Hierarchy Examples

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 Examples 1 & 2
• Example 1: fog deployment hierarchy independent of the
cloud
– E.g. the cloud can’t be used due to regulatory compliance,
security and privacy reasons, unavailability of a central cloud in
an area
– armed forces combat systems, drone operations, some
healthcare systems, hospitals, and ATM banking systems
• Example 2: information processing in fog deployments
located close to the infrastructure/process being
managed.
– commercial building management, commercial solar panel
monitoring, cable tv etc.
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 FOG Hierarchy Examples

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 Examples 3 & 4
• Example 3: local fog for time-sensitive
computation, the cloud is used for operational
and business-related information processing
• Example 4: constrained environments in which
the deployment of fog infrastructure may not
be feasible or economical
– E.g. Agriculture, whether stations, connected cars

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 N-tier FOG Architecture
• Presentation, application processing, and data
management functions are physically separated (3-
tiers)
– developers acquire the option of modifying or adding a
specific layer, instead of reworking the entire application
• How many tiers in FOG: depends on number of sensors,
type of work per sensor, latency between nodes,
reliability/availability of nodes
• In each tier, each level acquires or computes
information and shifts intelligence to higher levels
– Better organization of system intelligence
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 Intelligence in FOG

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 Node Management
• Manageability systems that can survive and manage
fog nodes in all power states
– Produce reports on the state of fog nodes
– Automate discovery, registration and provision of end
devices
– Gain full understanding of end devices (in terms of their
resources, health, operational state)
– More manageability aspects: system software and
firmware updates, alerts on abnormal operation
– Manage events, start/stop, define data flows
– Security analysis and response
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 Physical Node Safety
• Perform a security analysis and threat assessment in
order to identify the needs the fog node
• Depends also on the location of the fog node and
the degree of physical access to it
• Apply anti-tamper mechanisms to prevent physical
or electronic attacks
• Measures: resistance (material), Evidence (prove the
event), Detection (e.g. by Sensors), response
(countermeasures e.g. clear sensitive data,
shutdown or reset).
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 FOG Ref. Architecture Overview
North End: connect to cloud or applications
Application Services (containerized) Docker (containers)

02/18/2025 South End: Where Fog

sensors / devices connect to FOG
Computing 24
 Application-Node Services Layer

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 Application - Node Services 1/2
• May run in virtualized (containerized) environments
• Fog connector services: run at the south end, enable
connections with Things, support various protocols,
translate data to common data structures (e.g. JSON)
• Core services: separate the edge device from the
application running in Fog node, collect data from the
device and make them available to upper level
services (e.g. cloud), or pass commands to lower level
• Support services: database, event broker, logging,
scheduling, service registration, data clean-up etc.
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 Application - Node Services 2/2
• Analytic services: data filtering, averages, machine learning,
– local decision (e.g. shutdown when temperature exceeds threshold),
anomaly detection (malfunctioning device, intrusion detection)
– Application logic services
• Integration services: allow outside fog nodes, users or
applications to connect
– Transform data to desired format (e.g. JSON, XML)
– Accepts service requests (e.g. REST to prescribed addresses
• User interface: responsible for display and communication
with applications and users:
– status and operation of fog node, results of analytics processing,
interface for node management and probably Web site

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 References
• FOG Computing and the Internet of Things: Extend the
Cloud to where the Things Are, Cisco, White Paper, 2015
https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en_us/solutions/trends/iot/d
ocs/computing-overview.pdf

• FOG and IoT: An Overview of Research Opportunities, M.

Chiang, T.Zhang, 2016
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=7498
684

• OpenFog Architecture Overview, OpenFog Architecture

Working Group, White paper, Feb. 2017,
https://www.openfogconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/O
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penFog_Reference_Architecture_2_09_17-FINAL.pdf