The OpenFog Consortium and ETSI will be joining hands to develop fog-enabled mobile edge applications and technologies, as the two have signed a MoU with an intent to benefit organisations working to develop 5G, mission-critical and data-dense applications through fog computing and networking and thus reduce technical overlap across the multitude of domains.
The Consortium will be working with the ETSI Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) Industry Specification Group (ISG) wherein both organisations will collaborate on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) standardisation and interoperability requirements by sharing and applying selected technical work in process.
MEC’s work addresses multiple multi-access edge hosts deployed by different operator-owned networks which run edge applications in a collaborative manner. The OpenFog Reference Architecture will allow interoperability across operators by extending the mobile edge with a physical and logical multi-layered network hierarchy of cooperating fog nodes that interface between cloud and edge.
According to the agreement, the first initiative will focus on application programming interfaces (APIs) which support edge computing interoperability. The latest package of MEC APIs contains important properties that can be adapted and used in the OpenFog Reference Architecture. The ETSI MEC specifications also include API framework which provides a framework for delivering services to be consumed or offered by locally hosted or remote authorised applications.
There are two main components in the fog computing market: hardware and software. Hardware includes servers, routers, switches, gateways, and controller, and software comprised of customised application software and fog computing platform. Among these two, the software part generates maximum revenue because of the low capital requirement. Fog computing is finding application in building and home automation, smart energy, connected health, and smart manufacturing among others.
