(Newswire.net — January 29, 2018) — For the past decade, cloud computing has been the rave of data usage and shared technology. Companies worldwide have adapted it for business and other operational services. Its application has been responsible for several breakthroughs in the age of virtual computing.
However, as with most technological concepts, the program has begun to evolve into something new and bigger; fog computing. Fog computing is the extension of cloud computing concept into the network edge, thus perfecting its application in the Internet of Things (IoT) and other concepts that use real-time interactions.
Is fog computing the way forward?
Fog computing is a network fabric concept that extends from the outer edges of data creation centres to where they will ultimately be stored; whether it is in a cloud or the customer’s data centre. Businesses are considering the use of this new technology as another layer of a distributed network environment, and it is directly linked with the internet of things and cloud computing.
For example, public infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud vendors like Umbrellar – a cloud company can be regarded as a high-level global end-point for data. Data for IoT devices can be created at the edge of the network.
According to Brendan Wilde, Marketing Manager at Umbrellar, fog computing is the concept of an extensive network that connects these two environments. “It provides the missing piece for determining which data needs to be moved to the cloud, and which one can be locally analysed, at the edge,” Brendan explains.
OpenFogConsortium, is a group of service providers and research organisations promoting the advancements of this new technology standards. According to them, fog computing is a horizontal architecture at system level, that distributes the services and resources of computing, control, storage and network anywhere the scale from Cloud to Things.
The military’s efforts and the evolution of cloud computing
MilCloud is a product portfolio cloud service currently operated by the US Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). It consists of an integrated suite of facilities built to drive agility into the growth, deployment and maintenance of secure military operations.
This IaaS product combines government developed technology and mature Commercial of the Shelf systems to deliver cloud services specifically built to the needs of the defence organisation.
Major commercial cloud providers have running contracts to host data for the military, but experts believe that the evolution of cloud computing will have greater benefits for future commercial contract. This may include overseas functions and being hosted in the organisation’s department instead of commercial centres.
When the government indicated plans for accelerating its involvement in cloud computing programs, research into milCloud increased significantly. A guiding committee directed by the government is presently determining the specifics for a massive commercial cloud contract.
Fog computing is still in its developmental stages and the cloud still represents a major choice for data hosting for many businesses. As the technology evolves, there’s no doubt how big and extensive its application will become in various sectors of the economy.