Internet of Things (IoT), mobile cloud, cloudlet, mobile IoT, IoT cloud, fog, mobile edge, and edge emerging computing paradigms: Disambiguation and research directions

Abstract

Currently, we are experiencing a technological shift, which is expected to change the way we program and interact with the world. Cloud computing and mobile computing are two prominent research areas that have already had such an impact. The Internet of Things (IoT), which is concerned with building a network of Internet-enabled devices to promote a smart environment, is another promising area of research. Numerous emerging computing paradigms related to those areas of research and/or their intersections have come into play. These include Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC), cloudlet computing, mobile clouds, mobile IoT computing, IoT cloud computing, fog computing, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), edge computing, the Web of Things (WoT), the Semantic WoT (SWoT), the Wisdom WoT (W2T), opportunistic sensing, participatory sensing, mobile crowdsensing, and mobile crowdsourcing. Unfortunately, those paradigms suffer from the lack of standard definitions, and so we frequently encounter a single term referring to various paradigms or several terms referring to a single paradigm. Accordingly, this paper attempts to disambiguate those paradigms and explain how and where they fit in the above three areas of research and/or their intersections before it becomes a serious problem. They are tracked back to their inception as much as possible. This is in addition to discussing research directions in each area. The paper also introduces technologies related to the IoT such as ubiquitous and pervasive computing, the Internet of Nano Things (IoNT), and the Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT).