Cisco has launched a new Internet of Things (IoT) project that will bring distributed computing to its network hardware. The company calls this concept “fog computing,” and it has launched a new platform known as IOx that will allow switches and routers to run IoT applications.
“We believe that this turns the network into the fourth platform for computing (in addition to PCs, mobile and cloud), which will unleash new applications in manufacturing, transportation, smart cities and many other industries,” stated Guido Jouret, general manager of Cisco’s Internet of Things Business Group.
In a blog post, Roberto De La Mora, senior director of worldwide collaboration solutions marketing at Cisco, added, “For industrial IoT environments Cisco is now enabling the network infrastructure to play for industrial sensors the part that the smartphone plays for personal gear. In essence, Cisco is enabling access to computing and storage resources within the network devices to host applications and interfaces as close as the devices as possible, thus enabling Fog via the network.”
