IFCIoT: Integrated Fog Cloud IoT Architectural Paradigm for Future Internet of Things

We propose a novel integrated fog cloud IoT (IFCIoT) architectural paradigm that promises increased performance, energy efficiency, reduced latency, quicker response time, scalability, and better localized accuracy for future IoT applications. The fog nodes (e.g., edge servers, smart routers, base stations) receive computation offloading requests and sensed data from various IoT devices. To enhance performance, energy efficiency, and real-time responsiveness of applications, we propose a reconfigurable and layered fog node (edge server) architecture that analyzes the applications’ characteristics and reconfigure the architectural resources to better meet the peak workload demands. The layers of the proposed fog node architecture include application layer, analytics layer, virtualization layer, reconfiguration layer, and hardware layer. The layered architecture facilitates abstraction and implementation for fog computing paradigm that is distributed in nature and where multiple vendors (e.g., applications, services, data and content providers) are involved. We also elaborate the potential applications of IFCIoT architecture, such as smart cities, intelligent transportation systems, localized weather maps and environmental monitoring, and real-time agricultural data analytics and control.