Recently, a friend asked me to explain fog computing. Is it different than cloud computing?
The term Cloud in an architectural diagram, as originally used, meant “it doesn’t matter where the computing is”, i.e., the term Cloud meant vague and undefined. As happens so often, a few big data center operators (you know their names) re-defined it to mean “in our far-away high-up location”. This definition supports their marketing but restricts the original purpose of the term.
Fog is taking back the cloud...
Read MoreLaminar Control and Transactive Energy
Laminar control is drawing a lot of attention from utilities today, and it may just clear the way be the basis for distributed transactive energy (TE). The problem of smart grids boils down to adapting to intermittent power sources while reducing the operating margin. In power distribution, the operating margin is the amount of “extra” power available at any time. It is the operating margin that protects power delivery from unanticipated power consumption....
Read MoreESIF and Security at the Edge of Smart Grids
I attended the NREL ESIF Cybersecurity Workshop last month.
ESIF names the Energy Systems Integration Facility. The workshop demonstrated
both what should be done to secure future energy systems, and how difficult,
labor intensive, and non-scalable this is using standard practice.
Read MoreThe first morning showed off the ESIF’s model of how to secure the un-securable.
Cryptocurrency in the IoT is more than just Blockchain and Bitcoin
Bitcoin <> Blockchain <> Cryptocurrency, although many folks talk like these words are synonyms. I prefer to refer to the family of technologies as Crypto-Chain (CC) here because not all blockchain is used for currency, and not all “blockchain” even uses blockchain.
Blockchain has its roots in the 1960s.Blockchain can be used to create a distributed consensus database, with plenty of hashing tossed in to make things secure...