To fully exploit the benefits of the fog environment, efficient management of
data locality is crucial. Blind or reactive data replication falls short in
harnessing the potential of fog computing, necessitating more advanced
techniques for predicting where and when clients will connect. While spatial
prediction has received considerable attention, temporal prediction remains
understudied.
Our paper addresses this gap by examining the advantages of incorporating
temporal prediction into existing spatial prediction models. We also provide a
comprehensive analysis of spatio-temporal prediction models, such as Deep
Neural Networks and Markov models, in the context of predictive replication. We
propose a novel model using Holt-Winter's Exponential Smoothing for temporal
prediction, leveraging sequential and periodical user movement patterns. In a
fog network simulation with real user trajectories our model achieves a 15%
reduction in excess data with a marginal 1% decrease in data availability