According to Gartner, a staggering 25 billion "things" will be connected to the Internet by 2020. While much of the hype focuses on the significant convenience that the Internet of Things (IoT) will provide – from traffic management to at-home health care – it will require serious investments in the network to make these innovations a reality. The forecast for what happens when you take into account these new devices and the resulting terabits of data they will generate is 100 percent predictable – "fog" will be almost everywhere you go. But what does this mean?

Loudon Blair, senior director, Corporate Strategy Office, Ciena, sees firsthand how the impending explosion of IoT is challenging all kinds of network owners to reexamine the capabilities required to support computing demands. In this slideshow, Blair explains fog computing and illustrates why it is essential to making IoT a success.