Simulation and Emulation Tools for Fog Computing

Background: Fog computing paradigm has recently emerged and gained increasing attention in the present era of the Internet of Things. The growth of a large number of devices all around, leads to the situation of the flow of packets everywhere on the Internet. To overcome this situation and to provide computations at network edge, fog computing is the need of the present time that enhances traffic management and avoids critical situations of jam, congestion etc. Methods: For research purposes, there are many methods to implement the scenarios of fog computing i.e. real-time implementation, implementation using emulators, implementation using simulators etc. The present study aims to describe the various simulation and emulation tools for implementing fog computing scenarios. Results: The review shows that iFogSim is the simulator that most of the researchers use in their research work. Among emulators, EmuFog is being used at a higher pace than other available emulators. This might be due to ease of implementation and user-friendly nature of these tools and language these tools are based upon. The use of such tools enhance better research experience and leads to improved quality of service parameters (like bandwidth, network, security etc.). Conclusion: There are many fog computing simulators/emulators based on many different platforms that use different programming languages. The paper concludes that the two main simulation and emulation tools in the area of fog computing are iFogSim and EmuFog. Accessibility of these simulation/ emulation tools enhance better research experience and leads to improved quality of service parameters along with the ease of their usage.