Edge/fog computing

The topic of fog computing has been getting a lot of traction in recent years. The concept has been in the research and experimental phase for quite some time, but with the recent growth of IoT, edge computing has starting evolving from the "Innovation Trigger" phase to the "Peak of inflated expectation" phase (referring to Gartner's Hype cycle). The edge computing concept got such phenomenal traction that Cisco coined the term fog computing as an inspiration from the legacy architecture of cloud computing.

Let's understand the fog computing concept in layman terms.

Edge computing/fog computing is an architecture where the computing of data, applications, and services is pushed away from the centralized cloud to the logical extremes of the network, that is, the edge. This approach requires leveraging resources that may not be continuously connected to a network such as laptops, smartphones, tablets, home appliances, manufacturing industrial machines, sensors, and so on...