acm sigcomm

The cloud is migrating to the edge of the network, where routers themselves may become the virtualisation infrastructure, in an evolution labelled as “the fog”. However, many other complementary technologies are reaching a high level of maturity. Their interplay may dramatically shift the information and communication technology landscape in the following years, bringing separate technologies into a common ground. This paper offers a comprehensive definition of the fog, comprehending technologies as diverse as cloud, sensor networks, peer-to-peer networks, network virtualisation functions or configuration management techniques. We highlight the main challenges faced by this potentially breakthrough technology amalgamation.