Computation Infrastructure: Data Offloading, Processing, and Privacy

This chapter elaborates the computation infrastructure, namely, cloud, fog, and edge computing. Various kinds of data offloading mechanisms and a general multi-layer computing framework addressing security aspects are presented. Presently, the smart Internet of Things (IoT) devices offload the large data aggregation and processing as well as storage to different computing platforms such as edge, fog, and cloud. In this chapter, various computing paradigms including their benefits and limitations are discussed. This chapter also discusses about the total cost in terms of latency and energy required to complete a task on user devices as well as remotely (on edge or cloud). Further, various necessary security and privacy issues are discussed that needs to be considered for large deployment of computing infrastructure for real-time ICT applications such as healthcare application. Finally, the chapter provides challenges and future directions for research in these computing paradigms, including security and privacy issues.