ICEMIS2017, Monastir, Tunisia

Internet of Things: Survey and open issues of MQTT

Protocol

Muneer Bani Yassein, Mohammed Q. Shatnawi Shadi Aljwarneh, Razan Al-Hatmi

Faculty of Computer and Information Technology Faculty of Computer and Information Technology
Jordan University of Science and Technology Jordan University of Science and Technology
Irbid, Jordan Irbid, Jordan
masadeh@just.edu.jo, mshatnawi@just.edu.jo saaljawarneh@just.edu.jo, roz.alhatmi@yahoo.com

Abstract— Internet of Things (IoT) is based on a wireless as human or other computer. This concept was used for the
network that connects a huge number of smart objects, products, first time by Kevin Ashton in 1999.
smart devices, and people. It has another name which is Web of
Things (WoT). IoT uses standards and protocols that are Another name for IoT is the Internet of Objects, which
proposed by different standardization organizations in message consists of a wireless communication and a self-configuring
passing within session layer. Most of the IoT applications network between objects. IoT is a platform for devices to
protocols use TCP or UDP for transport. XMPP, CoAP, DDS, communicate electronically with the world. It became as a
MQTT, and AMQP are grouped of the widely used application description for the number of technologies and research
protocols. Each one of these protocols have specific functions disciplines which allow the Internet to communicate with
and are used in specific way to handle some issues. This paper physical objects in the real world [1, 14 -17].
provides an overview for one of the most popular application
layer protocols that is MQTT, including its architecture, message This paper represents Message Queuing Telemetry
format, MQTT scope, and Quality of Service (QoS) for the Transport (MQTT) protocol that is widely used. Recently, it is
MQTT levels. MQTT works mainly as a pipe for binary data and being used by famous corporations. Such as, Amazon and
provides a flexibility in communication patterns. It is designed to Facebook. MQTT represents the M2M protocols, that it is
provide a publish-subscribe messaging protocol with most based on publish/subscribe communication pattern. The
possible minimal bandwidth requirements. MQTT uses purpose of this protocol is to use it in devices with restricted
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) for transport. MQTT is an memory capabilities and limited processing power.
open standard, giving a mechanisms to asynchronous
communication, have a range of implementations, and it is
working on IP. In 1999, Andy Stanford-Clark of IBM and Arlen Nipper
was introduced a protocol for messaging named MQTT (i.e.
Keywords—MQTT, IoT, application layer protocols, Message Message Queue Telemetry Transport). In 2013, the MQTT
Queue Telemetry Transport., Internet of Things
became standard protocol of the Organization for the
Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).
I. INTRODUCTION
MQTT protocol connects the networks and devices with
The Internet of Things (IoT) has become widely used in middleware and applications. This connection uses machine-to-
latest developments within Radio-frequency identification server (M2S), server-to-server (S2S), machine-to-machine
(RFID), communication technologies, Internet protocols and communication patterns, and routing mechanism (one-to-many,
smart sensors. It is expected that the IoT in the coming years to one-to-one, many-to-many).
enable new applications that support the intelligent decision
making by linking the various technologies via connecting the The default MQTT port that worked on is TCP/IP
physical objects together. This physical objects can allow IoT port.1883. MQTT has different types, such as, mosquito, hive-
to act as a human (e.g. think, see, hear, share information, etc.) mq, and paho MQTT [13]. Transport Layer Security
(TLS)/Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) are security protocols that
The IoT exploits the underlying technologies of these provide communications security through the computer
objects to transform it from traditional ones to smarter. Such as network that is used in different applications such as email,
Internet protocols, applications, embedded devices and web browsing, Internet faxing, voice-over-IP (VoIP), and
communication technologies. Thus, it is expected that the IoT instant messaging.
is to contribute in growing of the world‘s economy and in
enhancing the quality of life. MQTT considered the most favorable connection protocol
for M2M and IoT. It utilizess the publish/subscribe pattern to
Considered the (IoT) as a system of interrelated computing provide simple implementation and flexible transition. Figure1
devices and mechanical machines that are provided with presents the publish/subscribe pattern for MQTT.
unique identifiers; it has the ability to transfer data over a
network without requiring interaction with other objects, such

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The authors of [5] were implemented and designed a
common extensible middleware to support future protocols
such as CoAP and MQTT and provides a common
programming interface. By this common middleware, they
made experiments for examining the performance of CoAP and
MQTT, in which the bandwidth consumption and end-to-end
delay are examined. The result shows that with higher loss rate
the MQTT messages have a higher delay than CoAP messages.
Also, the results proves that the MQTT has the lower delay
than CoAP messages in the lower packet. In addition, the
CoAP generates a lower additional traffic than MQTT when
the loss rate equal 25% or less and the message size small to
guarantee the message reliability.
Babovic, et al in [6], implemented two applications test to
give a full insight into the IoT Web application performance.
the first application used different communication protocols
and message encodings to measure latencies, and the graphics
rendering performance during performance comparison for
implementing different Web platforms. The second
Fig. 1. Publish/subscribe process utilized by MQTT
application measured the latency of the message throughput
rate and sensor data message delivery that used to compare the
web performance of messaging protocols in IoT as (XMPP,
MQTT appropriate for resource-constrained devices that DDS, MQTT, and AMQP). The result showed that the HTML5
are used in low bandwidth links or unreliable. MQTT built on platform have a higher capability in running IoT Web
the upper of TCP protocol as the Hypertext Transfer Protocol applications in real-time, the best performance in presentation
(HTTP). However, it is designed to have a less protocol is for Adobe Flash, and the optimum messaging protocol is for
overhead than HTTP [5], and it delivers the messages using the MQTT for wide range of applications of IoT mWeb.
three QoS levels. MQTT have two major specifications. One is
Mijovic, et al [7], compared the performance of three
MQTT v3.1 and the other is MQTT-SN, which is known as
application layer protocols of Internet of Things (IoT). Those
MQTT-S (V1.2) [2]. It is designed to be used use in the
are WebSocket, Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP), and
wireless communication environment for low bandwidth.
Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT). The
Unlike MQTT, MQTT-SN uses the UDP protocol. Recently,
comparison is based on implementing the three protocols in an
start the Amazon supported MQTT protocol in the Amazon
appropriate way for IoT applications under the same low
Web Services [12].
complexity hardware platform and low cost. The protocol
MQTT is a many-to-many communication protocol, it efficiency depends on the performance that is related to the
transfers messages using a central broker between multiple average Round Trip Time (RTT) and the overhead. In each
devices. MQTT devices connected to the broker with long- scenario in IoT device, the data is transmitted to the server and
lived outgoing TCP connection, this connection is originally waiting for replies. The air interface that is used for
heavy on constrained devices. MQTT does not support the communication between the Access Point (AP) and the IoT
message labeling with metadata or types to help devices to device was IEEE 802.11.b/g/n that is connected to the last
understand it. In MQTT, all devices should be informed in server. The MQTT protocol performance highly depends on
advance by the message formats to enable the communication the Quality of Service profile.
[9].
Next, this paper presents a comparison between some
This survey contains several parts that explain the MQTT reference papers and surveys to give a full insight into the
protocol. Section two presents the previous researches about topic. Table 1 includes ten research papers with their target and
the MQTT. The architecture of the MQTT is presented in the used methodology
section three. . In section four, the MQTT message format is
Table 2 include the goodness and weakness of these papers
explained, recent usages and MQTT scope are mentioned in
from the author opinion.
section five. The quality of service (QOF) for the MQTT is
discussed, where three levels of QOS are presented..
Eventually, the conclusion is presented in the last section.

II. RELATED WORK

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TABLE I. THE COMPARISON BETWEEN RESEARCH PAPERS ABOUT THE MQTT IN TERMS OF THEIR TARGETS AND METHODOLOGIES(1)

Paper Target Methodology

Toward better horizontal To define a rule-based intelligent gateway Elaborates on the proposed intelligent IoT protocol
integration among IoT services that bridges the gap between existing IoT gateway.
[1] (Internet of Things) protocols to enable the
efficient integration of horizontal IoT services. proposes to revisit the MQTT protocol with the aim of
providing it with a hybrid architecture that would allow it to
operate on various M2M as well as M2S and S2S scenarios
Internet of things: A survey provided an overall summary that helps the Classifies the IoT protocols into four categories.
on enabling technologies, researchers and application developers to get
protocols, and applications [2] rapidly how to insert the different protocols Provides the QoS criteria and issues, and presented an
together to deliver the required functionalities interplay between the IoT and big data.
without the need to go during RFCs and the Uses the use cases to illustrate typical protocol integration
standards specifications scenarios
Performance evaluation of examined the performance of CoAP and Made experiments by using extensible middleware to
MQTT and CoAP via a common MQTT from where bandwidth consumption support protocols such as CoAP and MQTT and provides a
middleware [5] and end-to-end delay common programming interface.
Web Performance Evaluation to give a full insight into the IoT Web Implements two test applications. The first application
for Internet of Things application performance of messaging measures latencies and the graphics rendering performance.
Applications [6] protocols in IoT as (XMPP, DDS, MQTT, and
AMQP), and the impact of each of the The second application measures the latency of the
described technologies on the performance of message throughput rate and sensor data message delivery
the real-time IoT Web applications.
Comparing application layer comparing the performance of three The experiment applies the same low complexity
protocols for the Internet of application layer protocols( WebSocket, CoAP, hardware platform and low cost in all protocols, and uses a
Things via experimentation [7] and MQTT) popular STMicroelectronics Nucleo-F411RE development
board
Application layer protocols To confirm a reliable balance among Focuses on message exchange between applications and
for the Internet of Things: A objects and things in application layer the internet.
survey [8] protocols
provides a comparison among protocols based on
transport layer used, architecture and communication model
A web-based IoT solution for to facilitate monitoring of different Implements the system in a tobacco drying kiln type SD –
monitoring data using MQTT manufacturing process in a mentioned area 78/2 (7270mm x 3150mm x 2850mm) with two chambers and
protocol [10] using IoT technologies integrated wood burning stove TD – 80.
An open source MQTT Mosquito broker installed on
Linux server that used to multicast data to the subscribed
devices.
Performance evaluation of evaluate the transmission times and A laboratory test environment with cellular network
M2M protocols over cellular analyzing potentials for optimization of CoAP, emulators for EDGE, UMTS and LTE is used to analyze the
networks in a lab environment MQTT and OPC UA protocols
[11]
An Assessment of Internet of To address the limitations of five different Comprises a client and three servers. The used servers are
Things Protocols for Resource- communication protocols including CoAP, one local and two Amazon Web Services EC2 micro instances
Constrained Applications [12] MQTT, MQTT-SN, WebSocket, and TCP. in Oregon and Tokyo. The client is a Raspberry Pi 2 model B5
running Debian GNU/Linux 7.8 (wheezy) and JVM build
1.8.0, connected via a wireless LAN.
MQTT based secured home create a home automation and making it Uses sensors and Raspberry pi B+ model as the network
automation system [13] more efficient and secure by using MQTT gateway.
protocol and ACL for the user
Implements ACL (access control list) tom provide
encryption method for the data

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TABLE II. THE COMPARISON BETWEEN RESEARCH PAPERS ABOUT THE MQTT IN TERMS OF THEIR STRENGTHS AND WAKNESSES (2)

Paper name Strengths Weaknesses

Toward better horizontal integration The enhanced protocol alleviates the deficiency in The Enhanced MQTT model did not apply in real-
among IoT services[1] support of QoS and reliability that found in the time IoT systems, authors did not study the security,
existing MQTT. It can handle different forms of scalability, or availability of IoT challenges.
communications such as M2M, M2S, and S2S.
Internet of things: A survey on It is enabling technologies, protocols, It is a good survey, it has no weakness from my
enabling technologies, protocols, and applications, and the research addresses different point of view.
applications [2] aspects of the IoT.
It provides a good foundation for researchers.
Performance evaluation of MQTT and Identifies the Influence of Packet Loss on Delay, The network conditions are not detected at the
CoAP via a common middleware[5] Influence of Packet Loss on Data Transfer, gateway to decide which protocol better to use.
Overhead For Various Message Sizes, and
Adaptively Changing Protocols for MQTT and
CoAP.

Web Performance Evaluation for This survey is a good source for information The experiment ignores the process time after
Internet of Things Applications [6] because it identifies several cases of which message decoding because it heavily depends on
application developers should be aware of. applied algorithms, but in the real applications, that
time cannot be ignored.
Comparing application layer protocols Uses simple devices enabler a fair comparison They did not conduct a longer experiment to prove
for the Internet of Things via and realistic performance evaluation. if WebSocket and CoAP are less resilient to network
experimentation [7] volatility than MQTT.
Application layer protocols for the Evaluates each protocol from the architecture, There has been no evaluation for all the protocols
Internet of Things: A survey[8] communication model, and security view point. It together in a single experiment.
also addresses the weaknesses and strengths of
each protocol.
A web-based IoT solution for Proposes an IoT solution for realizing real-time The survey did not present the data that is collect
monitoring data using MQTT protocol web-based solution that intents to monitor and from the sensors.
[10] track temperature and moisture values in the
agricultural drying process.
Performance evaluation of M2M It provides a full information about the work and The OPC UA connection establishment occurs only
protocols over cellular networks in a the evaluation of three prospective protocols for once at the beginning of the measurement and it is
lab environment [11] realizing future real-time smart grid applications. not shown later.
An Assessment of Internet of Things It helps IoT application programmers to make an The experiment did not give information about
Protocols for Resource-Constrained informed decision when choosing network reliability or security of the system.
Applications [12] protocols for their resource-constrained
applications.
MQTT based secured home It shows all the steps and the results of the Did not cover every issues for security.
automation system [13] experiments.
microcontroller, the server). The MQTT client type depends on
its role in the system whether it is a subscriber or a publisher
III. THE ARCHITECTURE OF MQTT [10].
MQTT uses the client/server model. Every device that is B. MQTT Broker:
connected to a server, using TCP known as (broker) message in
MQTT is a discrete chunk of data and it is ambiguous for the The broker is a central device between the spoke model and
broker. Therefore, MQTT is a message oriented protocol. The the mentioned hub. The main MQTT broker responsibilities are
address that the message published to it is called topic. The processing the communication between MQTT clients and
distributing the messages between them based on their
Device may subscribe to more than one topics, and it interested topics [11]. The broker can deal with thousands of
receives all messages that are published to these topics [3]. connected devices at the same time. Upon receiving the
The broker is a central device between the spoke model and message, the broker must search and find all the devices that
the mentioned hub. The main MQTT broker responsibilities are own a subscription to this topic [10].
processing the communication between MQTT clients and MQTT architecture contains three components. Those are
distributing the messages between them based on their a publisher, a broker, and a subscriber. The device that is
interested topics [11]. The broker can deal with thousands of interested in a specific topics registers on it as a subscriber to
connected devices at the same time. Upon receiving the be informed when the publishers publishing his topics by the
message, the broker must search and find all the devices that broker. The publisher transfers the information to the
own a subscription to this topic [10]. subscribers via the broker (i.e. the interested entities). It is
working as a generator of interested data, then, the
A. MQTT Client: authorization of the subscribers and the publishers are checked
MQTT client may be any of IoT object that sends or by the broker to realize the associated security issues [2].
receive data, not just devices. Any device can be a client (e,g, Figure2 present the component of the MQTT architecture.

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V. MQTT SCOPE

Many applications in various fields use the MQTT. For

example, it is being used in health care, Facebook notification,
surveillance, and in the energy meter. Therefore, the MQTT
protocol is considered the perfect messaging protocol for the
M2M communications and in the IoT. The reason behind that
is because of its ability to provide routing within a low power,
small, low memory and cheap devices that are installed in a
low bandwidth and weak networks.

VI. QUALITY OF SERVICE OF MQTT

There are three levels of Quality of Service (QoS) in order
to maintain the reliability of messages in the MQTT [5].
Level 0 is called one delivery (at most). the messages is
delivered based on the effort of the network Level 1 is one
Fig. 2. The architecture of MQTT delivery (at least). the message is being sent at least once and
the duplicate may exist in messages. The last level is Level
2,which is called one delivering (exactly). an additional
protocol is required in this level to guarantee that the message
is delivered only once (i.e. Highest level of QoS) [8]. The
IV. MQTT MESSAGE FORMAT following table provides a summary of QoS levels and their
For each MQTT, the command of the message header meanings.
contains a fixed header. This header contains two bytes. Byte
one includes the message type and the flags fields (i.e.
Duplicate delivery "DUP", QoS level, and RETAIN flag
"RETAIN". Byte two consists of the remaining length field TABLE III. QUALITY OF SERVICE (QOS) LEVELS OF MQTT
which contains a variable header and a payload, which is also
required for some messages [4]. Next Figure presents the QoS level meaning
message format for MQTT protocol.

level 0 A message is delivered at most once and no acknowledgement

of receiving is required

level 1 Every message is delivered at least once and a confirmation of

receiving a message is required.

level 2 A four-way handshake mechanism is used exactly once for the

delivery of a message.

Fig. 3. MQTT message format.

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TABLE IV. SUMMARIZING OF THE MAJOR INFORMATION OF Http://Www.Ibm.Com/Developerworks/Webservices/Library/Ws-
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