Big Data Over SmartGrid - A Fog Computing Perspective

Nowadays, the Cloud is migrating to the edge of the network and the traditional Cloud Computing (CC) paradigm is not enough for the storage of Big Data (BD) produced by Internet of Things (IoT). To meet this requirement, a new platform is needed, namely ”Fog Computing”. Under Fog Computing, most of the functions of data processing are performed out from the Cloud, so that a reliable and efficient communication system is required, in order to get a robust, affordable and secure power supply through SmartGrids (SGs). Computational requirements for SG applications can be met by using the Fog Computing (FC) model. Flexible resources and services shared in network, parallel processing and omnipresent access are some features of FC. In order to apply locally Fog-supported nodes over SGs, we need to introduce SmartLocalGrid (SLG) as a communication paradigm between micro-grids. Even though, the FC model is considered efficient for SLGs and SGs, but it has some constraints, such as security and reliability. In this work, Fog platform, technical support, security, BD analysis and utilization issues are further unveiled according to current FC paradigm. In FC, the Fog Nodes (FNs) can gather BD and transport them to the remote Cloud, in order to perform in-depth data analysis. There are still several issues and challenges to be addressed to achieve a better utilization of this technology. The future of the Cloud should support the idea of the Internet of Everything (IoE), where FC implements BD applications that support, in turn, SG and SLG applications. Finally, Cloud services based on existing SG and SLG prototypes and open research issues are presented. Keywords—Fog Computing, Cloud Computing, Big Data, SmartLocalGrid, SmartGrid, IoT, IoE