March 26, 1999

MQTT invented

Andy Stanford-Clark and Arlen Nipper created MQTT v1 on March 26, 1999 — a lightweight publish/subscribe protocol for unreliable satellite links.

What it was for

IBMMQTT sends small messages between devices with minimal overhead — ideal for IoTInternet of Things — networked sensors and devices embedded in appliances, factories, and cities. sensors, industrial SCADA, and mobile networks. Brokers route topics like `factory/line1/temperature`; clients subscribe and publish with at-most-once or guaranteed delivery. AWSAmazon Web Services — the dominant cloud platform for compute, storage, and managed infrastructure. IoTInternet of Things — networked sensors and devices embedded in appliances, factories, and cities. Core, HiveMQ, and millions of embedded devices use it today.

Why it's here

MQTT solved messaging over expensive, high-latency satellite links for oil-pipeline monitoring.

Why it mattered

It became the dominant wire protocol for IoTInternet of Things — networked sensors and devices embedded in appliances, factories, and cities. and constrained devices worldwide.

What it solved

Heavy enterprise messaging protocols consumed too much bandwidth and battery for remote sensors.

Media

  • IBM
    ImageIBM

    Treesmittenex, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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