- David C Klonoff: 1 Diabetes Research Institute; Mills-Peninsula Medical Center, San Mateo, CA, USA.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is generating an immense volume of data. With cloud computing, medical sensor and actuator data can be stored and analyzed remotely by distributed servers. The results can then be delivered via the Internet. The number of devices in IoT includes such wireless diabetes devices as blood glucose monitors, continuous glucose monitors, insulin pens, insulin pumps, and closed-loop systems. The cloud model for data storage and analysis is increasingly unable to process the data avalanche, and processing is being pushed out to the edge of the network closer to where the data-generating devices are. Fog computing and edge computing are two architectures for data handling that can offload data from the cloud, process it nearby the patient, and transmit information machine-to-machine or machine-to-human in milliseconds or seconds. Sensor data can be processed near the sensing and actuating devices with fog computing (with local nodes) and with edge computing (within the sensing devices). Compared to cloud computing, fog computing and edge computing offer five advantages: (1) greater data transmission speed, (2) less dependence on limited bandwidths, (3) greater privacy and security, (4) greater control over data generated in foreign countries where laws may limit use or permit unwanted governmental access, and (5) lower costs because more sensor-derived data are used locally and less data are transmitted remotely. Connected diabetes devices almost all use fog computing or edge computing because diabetes patients require a very rapid response to sensor input and cannot tolerate delays for cloud computing.