OREANDA-NEWS. Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) has become the first Japanese company to join the OpenFog Consortium (OpenFog), which brings together key players in the Internet of Things (IoT) to drive forward the deployment of fog computing*1. In working with other OpenFog members, Toshiba will contribute its extensive expertise in providing edge computing technology to help propel the development of fog computing.

OpenFog was formed last November by a coalition of key players in the IoT ecosystem, ARM, Cisco, Dell, Intel, Microsoft and the Princeton University Edge Laboratory. OpenFog works to accelerate innovation and industry growth through new business models and applications enabled by an open fog-based architecture. The OpenFog architecture brings seamless intelligence from the cloud to IoT endpoints using an open standardized approach.

The prevalence of IoT has made it possible to monitor and control many types of devices over the cloud. The cloud receives and analyzes data to provide visualized information for use in prediction, efficiency optimization, downtime reduction, and performance improvement. Companies also expect to add new functions to the IoT devices. All of these factors increase network traffic and pose a challenge to fast data.

Conversely, edge computing pushes applications, data and computing power away from the cloud to the edge of a network. It plays a crucial role in reducing network load to avoid data latency and pursue real-time processing. Fog computing is a system-level horizontal architecture that distributes resources and computing power to devices, which complements edge computing. Drawing on its extensive industrial knowledge and expertise, Toshiba aims to advance its edge computing by Chip to Cloud*2 and storage technologies, and will work with OpenFog to accelerate fog computing.

“As IoT continues to advance, edge computing becomes even more important, especially in the manufacturing and social infrastructure sectors,” said Shigeyoshi Shimotsuji, Corporate Vice President and Executive Vice President of Toshiba’s Industrial ICT Solutions Company. “Toshiba’s edge computing, powered by our unique Chip to Cloud technology, is a proven technology in many Toshiba industrial projects. We look forward to contributing our technologies and collaborating with OpenFog members in different industries to lead in next generation IoT.”

“Japan is a very important region for fog computing, and we are honored to welcome Toshiba as the first OpenFog member company from Japan,” said Jeff Fedders, President of OpenFog Consortium. “Toshiba’s extensive experience in IoT from consumer products to critical social infrastructures, together with their Chip to Cloud strategy and work in edge computing infrastructure, analytic software and hardware components, will be very valuable in the OpenFog technical work now underway.”

Notes:

*1: Fog Computing: A paradigm for expanding cloud computing to network edges, enabling the creation of computing, storage, and network services between devices and cloud data centers in a highly virtualized manner. Find out more at:
https://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2014_11/pr1305.htm 

*2: Chip to Cloud: In an IoT system, all edge devices are embedded with agent software that performs data processing at the edge, sends useful data to the cloud, and allows monitoring and control of devices. It effectively reduces network loading and notifies the cloud if any abnormality occurs.