Developing IoT applications in the Fog: A Distributed Dataflow approach

Abstract

In this paper we examine the development of IoT applications from the perspective of the Fog Computing paradigm, where computing infrastructure at the network edge in devices and gateways is leverage for efficiency and timeliness. Due to the intrinsic nature of the IoT: heterogeneous devices/resources, a tightly coupled perception-action cycle and widely distributed devices and processing, application development in the Fog can be challenging. To address these challenges, we propose a Distributed Dataflow (DDF) programming model for the IoT that utilises computing infrastructures across the Fog and the Cloud. We evaluate our proposal by implementing a DDF framework based on Node-RED (Distributed Node-RED or D-NR), a visual programming tool that uses a flow-based model for building IoT applications. Via demonstrations, we show that our approach eases the development process and can be used to build a variety of IoT applications that work efficiently in the Fog.