OASIS Brings M2M Industry Together to Improve MQTT Protocol

The Internet runs on open standards, including HTTP and HTML. A new standard for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and “Internet of Things” (IoT) communication, Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT), is being developed by the OASIS industry consortium.

“MQTT is well-suited to underpin the world of M2M/IoT and mobile applications where resources such as bandwidth and battery power are at a premium,” said Richard Coppen of IBM, and a co-chair of the OASIS MQTT Technical committee.  “It is an extremely lightweight, simple yet reliable protocol, designed for use where small code footprints are often advantageous.”

“At OASIS, we’ll be addressing IoT data flow challenges and other issues that have been identified by the community,” Raphael Cohn, another co-chair, said.

“We’ll broaden the range of enterprise solutions by enabling integration with business applications and expanding connectivity to different types of networks and remote devices.”

MQTT uses a publish/subscribe model to connect physical devices to remote servers, letting them exchange data. These can include devices to monitor processes, such as sensors in a power plant, as well as equipment used in factories. The protocol’s strengths are the small size of the packets as well as efficient distribution of data from one device to many.

It’s already being used in a variety of industries and over a number of different connections, including over satellite links.

IBM and Eurotech developed the original version of the protocol, and continue to contribute to the new OASIS-led effort to improve the standard.

“We applaud IBM and Eurotech for bringing MQTT into the OASIS open-standards process. Companies feel more confident about implementing the protocol when they can actively participate in its future,” OASIS CEO Laurent Liscia said.