Simulation Tools for Fog Computing: A Comparative Analysis

Fog Computing (FC) was introduced to offer resources closer to the users. Researchers propose different solutions to make FC mature and use simulators for evaluating their solutions at early stages. In this paper, we compare different FC simulators based on their technical and non-technical characteristics. In addition, a practical comparison is conducted to compare the three main FC simulators based on their performance such as execution time, CPU, and memory usage for running different applications. The analysis can be helpful for researchers to select the appropriate simulator and platform to evaluate their solutions on different use cases. Furthermore, open issues and challenges for FC simulators are discussed that require attention and need to be addressed in the future.