You may be familiar with the term cloud computing, but have you heard of Edge Computing and Fog Computing? Both pose as possible solutions with great potential for the storage of the ever-increasing influx of data, but they have very significant differences.
Edge computing
Edge computing has quite a literal meaning. It means that the computing is done at or very close to the source of the data, geographically. In other words, computing and storage systems are the “edge.” This means that the number of processes that are run in the cloud is significantly reduced, and instead, these processes are moved to local places such as an edge server, a computer, or an IoT device.
Edge computing serves several benefits, including the removal of processing latency. This is possible because data processing is done near or at the data source itself, instead of it being required to be sent from the network edge to a central processing system, then back to the edge.
Edge computing is a great solution for IoT because IoT devices generate plenty of data at all times. If this data is sent across a long network link for it to be analyzed and tracked, it will take lots of time. But thanks to edge computing, this data can be processed close to or at the source, or the edge, thus saving plenty of time and resources. In other words, edge computing allows data from IoT devices to be analyzed and processed in real-time.
Fog computing
A term that was created by Cisco, fog computing, refers to the extension of computing and data processing to the edge of the network. It was introduced in January 2014 with the aim of bringing the capabilities of cloud computing to the edge of the network.
In other words, fog computing stretches from the network’s outer edges, where data originates from, to where it will be stored eventually. This may be the data center or cloud computing. It processes data in an IoT gateway or a fog node and pushes down data to the LAN (local area network) level.
Fog computing serves the benefit of allowing organizations to gather data from multiple devices and aggregate them into regional stores. This is in contrast to edge computing, where data from a single device or a touchpoint is processed. Fog computing is also capable of processing larger amounts of data than edge computing.
