By now, its a safe bet that youve already heard all about the Internet of Things. Although theres plenty of hyperbole floating around about the IoT, its definitely revolutionary – the proliferation of embedded sensors will see scores of formerly dumb devices implanted with computer chips and connectivity thatll allow businesses to track everything. This wont just change business analytics – itll change the face of enterprise itself.
Were not here to talk about the Internet of Things though. Not directly, anyway. Instead, were going to talk about some of the technology that makes it possible.
Namely, the fog.
See, the Internet of Things is one area where traditional cloud computing tends to come chugging to a halt. This isnt really tied to any failing in the cloud itself, mind you. When used effectively, cloud computing remains one of the most effective tools in any businesss arsenal.
Rather, the clouds inability to address the Internet of Things is a side-effect of how it operates. In the cloud as it exists now, everything is centralized. Information, storage, and processing are all done by a primary server cluster or datacenter. With IoT – which requires split-second data collection and analysis – this is far from an ideal way to do things.
More than any other factor, bandwidth represents a significant bottleneck in this process – to say nothing of the processing power needed to manage what could potentially be hundreds of thousands of sensors, all generating data in real-time. Its an intimidating problem no matter how you look at it .
Were talking about big data on a scale that weve never before seen. Were talking about an army of sensors pumping out so much information that itd be impossible for a human being to sift through it unaided. Were talking about a computing load which, if heavy enough, could bring entire data centers to their knees.
So…whats the solution?
Simple – move all the processing and data analysis to the edge of the network rather than focusing it on a single point of presence. Since the tech industry loves their buzzwords, this methodology has come to be referred to as fog computing. Its sort of a natural next step to the cloud, really – in much the same way that cloud computing was a step forward for virtualization.
While data collected through the fog still eventually finds its way to storage drives and data warehouses, fog-enabled edge devices process and analyze that data. Any information thats irrelevant is filtered out and discarded, while everything thats important is forwarded ahead. Simple, right?
That, more than anything is what makes fog computing such a vital component of the Internet of Things.
One shouldnt think of fog computing as somehow inherently different from the cloud – it isnt. Rather, its an evolution made necessary by the ever-increasing volume of devices present in the modern enterprise. In this way, the cloud is still vital to IoT – as is a proper cloud strategy.
