MQTT

MQTT (originally an initialism of MQ Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight, publish-subscribe, machine to machine network protocol for message queue/message queuing service. It is designed for connections with remote locations that have devices with resource constraints or limited network bandwidth, such as in the Internet of Things (IoT). It must run over a transport protocol that provides ordered, lossless, bi-directional connections—typically, TCP/IP, but also possibly over QUIC It is an open OASIS standard and an ISO recommendation (ISO/IEC 20922). Andy Stanford-Clark (IBM) and Arlen Nipper (then working for Eurotech, Inc.) authored the first version of the protocol in 1999. It was used to monitor oil pipelines within the SCADA industrial control system. The goal was to have a protocol that is bandwidth-efficient, lightweight and uses little battery power, because the devices were connected via satellite link which, at that time, was extremely expensive. Historically, the "MQ" in "MQTT" came from the IBM MQ (then 'MQSeries') product line, where it stands for "Message Queue". However, the protocol provides publish-and-subscribe messaging (no queues, in spite of the name). In the specification opened by IBM as version 3.1 the protocol was referred to as "MQ Telemetry Transport". Subsequent versions released by OASIS strictly refers to the protocol as just "MQTT", although the technical committee itself is named "OASIS Message Queuing Telemetry Transport Technical Committee". Since 2013, "MQTT" does not stand for anything. In 2013, IBM submitted MQTT v3.1 to the OASIS specification body with a charter that ensured only minor changes to the specification could be accepted. After taking over maintenance of the standard from IBM, OASIS released version 3.1.1 on October 29, 2014. A more substantial upgrade to MQTT version 5, adding several new features, was released on March 7, 2019. MQTT-SN (MQTT for Sensor Networks) is a variation of the main protocol aimed at battery-powered embedded devices on non-TCP/IP networks, such as Zigbee.