Research Article Open Access

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

Abdulrahman Alshehri1, Hazzaa Alshareef1, Samah Alhazmi1, Marwah Almasri1 and Maha Helal1
  • 1 College of Computing and Informatics, Saudi Electronic University, Riyadh 11673, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

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.

References

Abdulkareem, K. H., Mohammed, M. A., Gunasekaran, S. S., Al-Mhiqani, M. N., Mutlag, A. A., Mostafa, S. A., Ali, N. S., & Ibrahim, D. A. (2019). A Review of Fog Computing and Machine Learning: Concepts, Applications, Challenges, and Open Issues. IEEE Access, 7, 153123–153140. https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2019.2947542
Alrawais, A., Alhothaily, A., Hu, C., & Cheng, X. (2017). Fog Computing for the Internet of Things: Security and Privacy Issues. IEEE Internet Computing, 21(2), 34–42. https://doi.org/10.1109/mic.2017.37
Baccarelli, E., Naranjo, P. G. V., Scarpiniti, M., Shojafar, M., & Abawajy, J. H. (2017). Fog of Everything: Energy-Efficient Networked Computing Architectures, Research Challenges, and a Case Study. IEEE Access, 5, 9882–9910. https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2017.2702013
Boonsong, W., Inthasuth, T., & Zulkifli, C. Z. (2023). Proposed Precision Analysis of Water Quality Monitoring Embedded IoT Network. Przegląd Elektrotechniczny, 1(9), 177–180. https://doi.org/10.15199/48.2023.09.33
De Donno, M., Tange, K., & Dragoni, N. (2019). Foundations and Evolution of Modern Computing Paradigms: Cloud, IoT, Edge, and Fog. IEEE Access, 7, 150936–150948. https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2019.2947652
Gia, T. N., Jiang, M., Rahmani, A.-M., Westerlund, T., Liljeberg, P., & Tenhunen, H. (2015). Fog Computing in Healthcare Internet of Things: A Case Study on ECG Feature Extraction. 2015 IEEE International Conference on Computer and Information Technology; Ubiquitous Computing and Communications; Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing; Pervasive Intelligence and Computing, Liverpool, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1109/cit/iucc/dasc/picom.2015.51
Hou, X., Ren, Z., Wang, J., Zheng, S., Cheng, W., & Zhang, H. (2020). Distributed Fog Computing for Latency and Reliability Guaranteed Swarm of Drones. IEEE Access, 8, 7117–7130. https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2020.2964073
Jonathan, A., Uluyol, M., Chandra, A., & Weissman, J. (2017). Ensuring reliability in geo-distributed edge cloud. 2017 Resilience Week (RWS), Wilmington, DE, USA. https://doi.org/10.1109/rweek.2017.8088660
Kunal, S., Saha, A., & Amin, R. (2019). An overview of cloud‐fog computing: Architectures, applications with security challenges. Security and Privacy, 2(4). https://doi.org/10.1002/spy2.72
Mouradian, C., Naboulsi, D., Yangui, S., Glitho, R. H., Morrow, M. J., & Polakos, P. A. (2018). A Comprehensive Survey on Fog Computing: State-of-the-Art and Research Challenges. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 20(1), 416–464. https://doi.org/10.1109/comst.2017.2771153
Mukherjee, M., Matam, R., Shu, L., Maglaras, L., Ferrag, M. A., Choudhury, N., & Kumar, V. (2017). Security and Privacy in Fog Computing: Challenges. IEEE Access, 5, 19293–19304. https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2017.2749422
Ni, J., Zhang, K., Lin, X., & Shen, X. (2018). Securing Fog Computing for Internet of Things Applications: Challenges and Solutions. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 20(1), 601–628. https://doi.org/10.1109/comst.2017.2762345
Osanaiye, O., Chen, S., Yan, Z., Lu, R., Choo, K.-K. R., & Dlodlo, M. (2017). From Cloud to Fog Computing: A Review and a Conceptual Live VM Migration Framework. IEEE Access, 5, 8284–8300. https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2017.2692960
Pereira, J., Ricardo, L., Luís, M., Senna, C., & Sargento, S. (2019). Assessing the reliability of fog computing for smart mobility applications in VANETs. Future Generation Computer Systems, 94, 317–332. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2018.11.043
Wang, Y., Uehara, T., & Sasaki, R. (2015). Fog Computing: Issues and Challenges in Security and Forensics. 2015 IEEE 39th Annual Computer Software and Applications Conference, Taichung, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.1109/compsac.2015.173
Yi, S., Hao, Z., Qin, Z., & Li, Q. (2015). Fog Computing: Platform and Applications. 2015 Third IEEE Workshop on Hot Topics in Web Systems and Technologies (HotWeb), Washington DC, USA. https://doi.org/10.1109/hotweb.2015.22
Yi, S., Li, C., & Li, Q. (2015). A Survey of Fog Computing. Proceedings of the 2015 Workshop on Mobile Big Data. MobiHoc’15: The Sixteenth ACM International Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing, Hangzhou, China. https://doi.org/10.1145/2757384.2757397
Zhang, P., Zhou, M., & Fortino, G. (2018). Security and trust issues in Fog computing: A survey. Future Generation Computer Systems, 88, 16–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2018.05.008
Zhanikeev, M. (2015). A cloud visitation platform to facilitate cloud federation and fog computing. Computer, 48(5), 80–83. https://doi.org/10.1109/mc.2015.122

Journal of Computer Science
Volume 20 No. 6, 2024, 641-648

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/jcssp.2024.641.648

Submitted On: 19 September 2023 Published On: 20 March 2024

How to Cite: Alshehri, A., Alshareef, H., Alhazmi, S., Almasri, M. & Helal, M. (2024). A Holistic Approach to Security, Availability and Reliability in Fog Computing. Journal of Computer Science, 20(6), 641-648. https://doi.org/10.3844/jcssp.2024.641.648

  • 1,658 Views
  • 747 Downloads
  • 0 Citations

Download

Keywords

  • Cloud Computing
  • Fog Computing
  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)