The OpenFog Consortium has released its own take of a reference architecture for companies to follow with the development of their IoT ecosystems.

Only days after the Industrial Internet Consortium unveiled its latest iteration of its own reference architecture for industrial IoT, OpenFog’s technical framework is said to encapsulate the data-intensive requirements of IoT, 5G and artificial intelligence applications across multiple verticals.

The OpenFog Reference Architecture is a high-level framework that is hoped will lead to industry standards for fog computing.

According to OpenFog, fog computing “effectively addresses issues related to security, cognition, agility, latency and efficiency” of these edge devices, and hopes that the release of this framework will accelerate IoT adoption through an open, interoperable architecture.

Since its inception with fellow foundation members ARM, Dell, Intel and Microsoft, among others, the consortium has bolstered its ranks, with companies such as GE Digital, IEEE, Schneider Electric, and numerous educational institutions jumping on board.

The Cisco-led consortium called upon some of its member organisations such as IEEE to help generate rigorous user, functional and architectural requirements, as well as detailed APIs and performance metrics to guide the implementation of interoperable designs.

What has resulted is a reference architecture that provides a medium- to high-level view of system architectures for fog nodes and networks, deployment and hierarchy models, and use cases.

It will form part of a larger suite of technical documents still under development by OpenFog, and future iterations will provide greater low-level detail, including formal, enumerated requirements that will form the basis of quantitative testbeds, certifications, and the specified interoperability of fog elements.

“While fog computing is starting to be rolled out in smart cities, connected cars, drones and more, it needs a common, interoperable platform to turbocharge the tremendous opportunity in digital transformation,” said OpenFog chairman and senior director of Cisco’s corporate strategic innovation group, Helder Antunes in a statement.

OpenFog president Jeff Fedders added: “The OpenFog Reference Architecture is the culmination of a year-long effort from industry and university research members to ensure we address all the appropriate communications, software, infrastructure and security components of fog computing.”

“By developing this common framework, we’re addressing the hardware, software and system elements necessary for an OpenFog architecture and a vibrant supplier ecosystem.”