MQTT Protocol: Fundamentals, Tools and Future Directions

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) is a prominent paradigm applied to several areas ranging from medicine to industrial networks. Its vision refers to the connection to the Internet million of daily used objects. Important challenges in this area consist in to propose mechanisms and protocols that meet security, device interoperability, quality of service and energy-efficiency requirements. Particularly, the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol has been prospected in order to provide efficient communication at the application layer for IoT. This work aims to present the fundamentals, tools and future directions related to MQTT protocol and its variation tailored for sensor networks, called MQTT-SN. We discuss such protocols comparing to other current IoT application layer protocols, such as Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). Additionally, we present tools so as to support practical experimentation and simulation. Finally, the open issues and challenges in this area are examined.