Feasibility of Fog Computing

TL;DR

This paper explores the feasibility of fog computing, decentralizing computation to the network edge to improve latency and reduce traffic, demonstrating significant benefits for online gaming applications.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of fog computing, analyzing its potential to enhance Quality-of-Service and Experience by decentralizing computation closer to users.

Findings

20% reduction in response time for online gaming

Over 90% decrease in traffic between edge and cloud

Potential for sustainable and scalable computing models

Abstract

As billions of devices get connected to the Internet, it will not be sustainable to use the cloud as a centralised server. The way forward is to decentralise computations away from the cloud towards the edge of the network closer to the user. This reduces the latency of communication between a user device and the cloud, and is the premise of 'fog computing' defined in this paper. The aim of this paper is to highlight the feasibility and the benefits in improving the Quality-of-Service and Experience by using fog computing. For an online game use-case, we found that the average response time for a user is improved by 20% when using the edge of the network in comparison to using a cloud-only model. It was also observed that the volume of traffic between the edge and the cloud server is reduced by over 90% for the use-case. The preliminary results highlight the potential of fog computing in achieving a sustainable computing model and highlights the benefits of integrating the edge of the network into the computing ecosystem.