MindConnect MQTT Introduction
MindConnect MQTT Introduction¶
MindConnect MQTT offers a simple and secured way to connect MQTT devices. With bidirectional communication you can securely exchange data between applications (also services) and your devices in near real time. MindConnect MQTT is available at no additional cost to customers with a valid Insights Hub Package.
MQTT connectivity is ideally suited for use cases that frequently exchange small amounts of data between Industrial IoT and devices. For example, sending measurements of water levels, messages from field devices or location data of containers. Application and services can also send data such as device configurations, commands, operations or some other data to the device. Reliable internet connectivity is recommended to ensure timely, uninterrupted data transmission.
MindConnect MQTT offers:¶
- Highly secure and scalable connection using X.509 certificate-based authentication
- End-to-end data encryption using Transport Layer Security (TLS) v1.2 between your devices and Industrial IoT
- Onboard your devices by using your own mobile or enterprise application
- Send data from Industrial IoT to your devices in near real time using the commanding services
- Complies with MQTT v3.1.1 standard with Quality of Service (QOS) 0 and 1
- Allows you to Combine MQTT with HTTPS for exchanging larger volumes of data
Availability¶
MindConnect MQTT is available as a standard connectivity option in all Insights Hub Packages. We are continuously developing new features to further address customer use cases such as improving the flexibility of data format and much more.
Overview¶
A device, that supports X.509 certificate-based authentication can be securely and easily connected using MindConnect MQTT. There are two different ways to create the certificate needed for authenticating your device. The certificate can be either downloaded from Asset Manager, or it can be created outside of Industrial IoT. Unlike other MindConnect solutions, MQTT does not require you to create an agent. Downloading the agent certificate from Asset Manager itself results in creation of the agent. If the agent certificate is created outside using own CA certificate approach, then at the first successful connect an agent is created automatically. An agent is the virtual representation of the actual field device (gateway in some literature). MindConnect MQTT allows you to create the data model from your own device using the JSON template. Once your data model is completed, the authenticated device can simply send the model to Industrial IoT using a pre-defined MQTT topic.
Instantiating the data model using pre-defined topic results in automatically creating assets, aspects and mapping the variables to the data points. To send the time series data using MindConnect MQTT, refer to the standard template and send it to the pre-defined MQTT topic. Devices can subscribe to another pre-defined topic to enable to received data from applications and services. For use cases requiring large volumes of data exchange, you can continue using MindConnect API by obtaining an Agent Access Token from MindConnect MQTT agent, using the pre-defined MQTT topic.
Connect with MindConnect MQTT: Concepts¶
MindConnect MQTT Broker authenticates the MQTT agents over TLS to publish and subscribe messages adhering to MQTT protocol. It is an alternative to the HTTP-based MindConnect Service.
MindConnect Async API¶
The MindConnect Async API provides topics and message structures to ingest data securely and reliably into Industrial IoT using MindConnect MQTT. The async APIs can be used for several purposes such as defining and initializing the models (Asset Modeler Async API Service), exchanging time series data with Industrial IoT, sending events to Industrial IoT applications and so on. For further information about the MindConnect Async API, refer to the MindConnect Async API specification.
MindConnect MQTT API¶
The MindConnect MQTT API provides functionality for applications to manage the certificates for securely connecting the MQTT agents with Industrial IoT. With appropriate authentication, the API can be easily integrated into applications hosted in an enterprise system or likewise.
For further information about the MindConnect MQTT Sync API, refer to the MindConnect MQTT API specification.
How To: MQTT Broker¶
MindConnect MQTT Broker authenticates the MQTT agents over TLS to publish and subscribe messages adhering to MQTT protocol. It is an alternative to the HTTP-based MindConnect Service.
Connectivity How Tos & Tutorials
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