A Holistic Approach to Security, Availability and Reliability in Fog Computing

Cloud computing has become popular in recent years due to the considerable flexibility it provides in terms of its availability and affordability and the reliability of different software and services for remote users. Fog computing has also gained considerable attention in recent years from the research fraternity. Fog computing is an additional layer between the users of the cloud and the cloud infrastructure as a place that stores frequently used data in order to reduce latency, which might occur as a consequence of using cloud computing. It also provides easy access and management mechanisms to the devices located at the edge of the cloud, which leads to better performance when compared with cloud computing. Fog computing does, however, pose certain challenges, related to security, such as data breaches; availability, such as dealing with connectivity interruptions; and the reliability of fog resources and services. This study proposes a lightweight system that adopts the fog computing paradigm and addresses several of its challenges by, for instance, enhancing the security aspects of the whole system by validating nodes that join the fog layer before serving the end user. In addition, the proposed system provides better availability and reliability for fog computing and its associated services by capturing and tracking the progress of tasks and being able to resume once an interruption is detected. Experimental results validate the feasibility of the proposed system in terms of its enhanced security capabilities and time cost. This is achieved by using several security techniques which result in allowing only approved devices to join the fog layer. The results also demonstrate the capability to execute tasks even if an interruption is detected by resuming the remainder of the task through another fog node. The proposed solution is unique in the sense that it provides a simple mechanism for implementation in real-world applications, especially in crowded places or when the mobility of users is high. It can also be enhanced further in several ways to address other predicaments related to fog computing.