What is the difference between fog calculation and edge calculation?

While many IT professionals use the terms haze and edge computing synonymously, others need a subtle and important distinction between them.

Fog calculations and edge calculations - the difference between these two concepts related to the Internet of Things depends largely on the object of the inquiry. There are three ways to get there, and you might know the three ways in which these emerging terms are used.

Synonym. Many IT professionals use the terms fog and edge computing extensively and interchangeably to refer to the distribution of computing and storage resources at or near the network.

A decentralized edge calculation or fog calculation model enables data to be processed at or near its origin, rather than in a remote internal data center or cloud. This reduces latency for mobile and IoT devices and reduces overall network congestion.

Distinguish but related. Other users use more precise definitions to distinguish between fog calculations and edge calculations.

The OpenFog Alliance is an industry organization that includes Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, and Princeton. The alliance believes that fog is a broad IT architecture that creates a complex dynamic interconnect network. These interconnects can scale from edge devices to the cloud; share local computing and storage resources such as IoT gateways; and other edge devices.

According to the OpenFog Alliance, fog computing (also known as fog networking and atomization) standardizes cloud computing extensions to the edge, including all the space and activity between the two.

In this case, the range of edge calculations is more limited because it refers to various predefined instances of computational processing that occur at or near the endpoints of the network. With this model, edge computing cannot establish a direct network connection between two endpoints or between an endpoint and an IoT gateway; for this, it requires fog calculations.

In the OpenFog Alliance's view, fog calculations always use edge calculations. However, edge calculations may or may not use fog calculations. In addition, by definition, fog calculations include cloud computing, while edge calculations do not include cloud computing.

The location is crucial. There are also some IT professionals who say that the use of fog computing and edge computing depends in particular on the location of distributed computing and storage resources. If the processing power is directly embedded in the endpoint of the connection, it is called edge calculation. However, if the intelligence resides in a separate network node between the endpoint and the cloud computing (such as a local node or an IoT gateway), then it is a fog calculation.