Fog e edge computing : uma arquitetura híbrida em um ambiente de internet das coisas

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) is considered a computational evolution that advocates the existence of a large number of physical objects embedded with sensors and actuators, connected by wireless networks and communicating through the Internet. From the beginning of the concept to the present day, IoT is widely used in the various sectors of industry and also in academia. One of the needs encountered in these areas was to be connected to IoT devices or subsystems throughout the world. Thus, cloud computing gains space in these scenarios where there is a need to be connected and communicating with a middleware to perform the data processing of the devices. The concept of cloud computing refers to the use of memory, storage and processing of shared resources, interconnected by the Internet. However, IoT applications sensitive to communication latency, such as medical emergency applications, military applications, critical security applications, among others, are not feasible with the use of cloud computing, since for the execution of all calculations and actions messaging between devices and the cloud is required. Solving this limitation found in the use of cloud computing, the concept of fog computing arises and whose main idea is to create a federated processing layer, still in the local network of the computing devices of the ends of the network. In addition to fog computing, there is also edge computing operating directly on the devices layer, performing some kind of processing, even with little computational complexity, in order to further decrease the volume of communication, besides collaborating to provide autonomy in decision making yet in the Things layer. A major challenge for both fog and edge computing within the IoT scenario is the definition of a system architecture that can be used in different application domains, such as health, smart cities and others. This work presents a system architecture for IoT devices capable of enabling data processing in the devices themselves or the closest to them, creating the edge computing layer and fog computing layer that can be applied in different domains, improving Quality of Services (QoS) and autonomy in decision making, even if the devices are temporarily disconnected from the network (offline). The validation of this architecture was done within two application scenarios, one of public lighting in smart city environment and another simulating an intelligent agricultural greenhouse. The main objectives of the tests were to verify if the use of the concepts of edge and fog computing improve system efficiency compared to traditional IoT architectures. The tests revealed satisfactory results, improving connection times, processing and delivery of information to applications, reducing the volume of communication between devices and core middleware, and improving communications security. It also presents a review of related work in both academia and industry.