Catalyzing Cloud-Fog Interoperation in 5G Wireless Networks: An SDN Approach

The growing storage and compute stacks in cloud data centers are expected to accommodate the majority of Internet traffic in the future. However, as the number of mobile devices significantly increases, getting massive data into and out of the cloud wirelessly inflicts high pressure on the bandwidth, and meanwhile induces unpredictable latency. Fog computing, which advocates extending clouds to the network edge, guarantees low latency and location-aware service provisioning. In this article, we consider fog computing as an ideal complement rather than a substitute for cloud computing, and we propose an SDN enabled framework for cloud-fog interoperation, aiming at improving quality of experience and optimizing network resource usage. Two case studies are provided to illuminate the feasibility and advantages of the proposed framework. Finally, potential research issues are presented for further investigation.