What is MQTT?? And why will it be relevant in every logistics operation soon? (Dominik Obermaier, Founder/CTO, HiveMQ)

00:00:05: Hello and welcome to the logistics tribe I'm boss felgendreher founder of the logistics tribe in today's episode is all about mqtt.

00:00:14: I'm GT is a messaging protocol for The Internet of Things iot.

00:00:18: And if you work in the logistics and Supply Chain management you really need to get up to speed on this very important technology there is such a key enabler for connecting devices Vehicles acid sensors and so on.

00:00:29: I have to admit I knew nothing about mqtt before this episode but now I do.

00:00:34: Because our guest dominik obermaier is a key expert in this field he's the CTO and co-founder at hivemq.

00:00:42: And also the co-author of the book the technical foundations of iot

00:00:46: I'm really glad that I host Michael prüglmeier was able to get him onto the show today this episode of short and sweet just over 30 minutes well worth your time

00:00:54: enjoy hi Dominick welcome to the logistics tribe hi glad to be here

00:01:00: today is a special episode about mqtt and

00:01:06: I bet that not much of our audience knows already what mqtt is it's actually called a message queuing Telemetry transport so,

00:01:19: transport and Logistics is already in the name but Dominic Maybe

00:01:24: you can explain us a little bit more about mqtt and what is it about and what does it have to do with with Logistics

00:01:34: yeah absolutely so mqtt is SM the chest it's a protocol for transporting data.

00:01:42: And actually it's a pretty old protocol it was invented in 1999 but it got massive traction for iot use cases,

00:01:52: around 2010 until now so for the last 10 years it basically conquered the world without yeah.

00:01:59: Getting a lot of recognition but people and similar to what HTTP is for the internet of humans mqtt is for the Internet of Things.

00:02:10: So basically mqtt was invented for one specific thing this is transport data as efficiently as possible.

00:02:20: Between machines,

00:02:22: for ya use cases that nowadays are called iot use cases and it actually works over very unreliable channels.

00:02:32: Same could he comes from a background very have things like Wi-Fi mobile network or even satellite connection,

00:02:39: which means you already need to make sure that even my case of disruptions you get a good data flow and data actually sent.

00:02:47: So say hi this is basically what mqtt is about is as about sending data and this is invisible glue,

00:02:56: the toes are current world together because yeah we have so many connected devices currently with billions of devices connected which need to communicate which with each other and this kind of devices,

00:03:07: copy forklifts this could be other systems into the factory but also could be a car it could be a Street Lamp or any Smart City whiskers.

00:03:17: And if you look look at the world outside a lot of the things which are smart today actually use mqt under the hood,

00:03:24: and what is so interesting that why mqtt was originally not invented for Logistics use cases it is also conquering Logistics without people even recognizing because it's used Idaho did so many use cases.

00:03:38: And so I think it's a pretty exciting and I think people really need to know about that,

00:03:42: all right I think coming back to the originals of mqtt and you were telling me that it had something to do with with all pipelines or something like that is that true our yes absolutely so.

00:03:56: So what is so interesting is that in 1999 so this is an IT terms this is ancient ancient times,

00:04:04: so so 1999 there are two gentlemen one called are nipple and watching my call,

00:04:12: and some for Clark and both were task with a specific problem.

00:04:17: So they had a project with a Phillips 66 and it was about all pipe and monitoring and for people who are familiar with scalar systems basically.

00:04:27: Did scada systems or systems that the supervise and act on data and on telemetry.

00:04:33: I'm over let's say the internet but the problem here is of course if we think of a boil pipeline.

00:04:39: It covers a lot of land and this land probably doesn't have a good connectivity even nowadays and back then of course there was no mobile connectivity and

00:04:49: and so they needed to use satellite connection and the thing they were tasked with is that.

00:04:55: Since my connection is extremely expensive to use so if you want to send data let's say from the oil pipeline to your control system.

00:05:03: Then everybody calls and basically that's thousands of dollars which per year which you save if you save a few bites of bandwidth so it's really the.

00:05:16: The base Paradigm to be as efficient as possible.

00:05:21: And so they invented the protocol based on publish/subscribe principles and use the protocol and communication stack the very was already built in and that this we're already used also for internet connectivity and this protocol,

00:05:35: which they called litter mqtt was invented for the project and then it was basically buried for I told 2010,

00:05:43: until IBM decided to make a royalty free version of it which basically means you won't get sued if you're implementing that,

00:05:53: and and then in 2010 a lot of lot of interest around it was because what is so interesting the.

00:06:00: He problems people had in 1999.

00:06:03: For connecting things are the same challenges people had in 2010 connecting things and if you think about the,

00:06:12: connectivity challenges we have today it's a lot of internet connectivity it's about connecting things or the internet and reliable networks and it's also about data efficiency.

00:06:23: So these are the extremely important things for.

00:06:29: Basically corporate users today because connectivity costs a lot of money and it's super critical to save money and again to go full circle.

00:06:39: In 1999 the same problems not a lot of bandwidth unreliable connectivity and and you need to save a lot of money is the same.

00:06:48: Have which which we have today.

00:06:50: So this is where I'm going to count from so it had to do with oil pipelines and also going full circle what is interesting here while you started in 1999 with oil and gas.

00:07:00: Interestingly enough today a lot of oil and gas,

00:07:05: yeah corporations use mqtt to connect their manufacturing sites to connect all the logistics at basically make sure that everything is connected via mqtt,

00:07:17: so it basically took mqtt 20 years plus or even or even longer.

00:07:24: To go this full circle and to be this mature protocol,

00:07:27: people use today alright interesting yeah I didn't know about that and I you just mentioned also one

00:07:36: specific method it's called a publish And subscribe maybe you can and I think that's that's something

00:07:44: that is characteristic for mqtt right maybe you can go into that a little bit.

00:07:51: Yes so one of the key things mqtt thinks about us.

00:07:57: How to make data transfer as efficient as possible and the most efficient data transfer is if you do not transfer data at all if you do not need that.

00:08:06: And so mqt relies on an architecture principal a lot of people in it use for sending data round which is published subscribe subscribe.

00:08:16: And this architecture principle describes that only data is sent,

00:08:23: to Consumers if it needs to that means you basically could subscribe to one channel one channel that you are interested in yeah right right it's similar to what actually subscribing is so for example if you.

00:08:38: If you do a real world example with our technology known so let's assume you're interested in a specific magazine so.

00:08:45: So you're usually two options one option is you go to the shop everyday and look if there's a new issue of the bag aside if yes you're buying it otherwise you go home without buying it this is extremely inefficient,

00:08:58: why because you're going to a shop and most of the time you go home without buying anything I even better ways.

00:09:06: To just call the magazine issue and say hey as soon as the new issue is there please set it to be home so I can read it and have it at the,

00:09:17: best let's say at the place where the data should be so Verdi magazine should be and they can read it in time when it's it's basically release metadata is fresh and.

00:09:29: The same is also true for publish subscribe and you think about data so you'll for example you have a forklift and this forklift sends a GPS data to some other system.

00:09:40: Then if it's just stands around it doesn't make a lot of sense to send a GPS data all the time to your system because the forklift doesn't move right.

00:09:48: And what be much more efficient as soon as the data changes you send it to the system who is basically interested in the data.

00:09:56: So this is what people call report by exception.

00:09:59: And this is what mqtt also implements because this report by exception means you only send the data when it's fresh when you need it.

00:10:07: And there's another principle and quality uses here and that second principle here is that you push data because.

00:10:16: If you think about it it doesn't make a lot of sense for the forklift to send data to the system who knew who needs it directly.

00:10:24: What do you usually do is you want to have a so-called broker a data broker which is a data Hub responsible for sending data where it needs to be.

00:10:35: SO2 make this example what would happen is the forklift would move would send CPS data to the data to the broker.

00:10:43: And this software would then decide who needs that because you couldn't could send it to the system to the control system but let's assume you also have a mobile phone app.

00:10:54: For an operator who can see where the forklifts so you could basically use the one data packet.

00:11:02: That the helper receives and send it to more than one of these systems so you could send it to the,

00:11:10: control system as well as the mobile phone app or even tomorrow systems.

00:11:15: So this is what immunity really is a user's pops up by decoupling all centers of data which could be a forklift or even multiple forklifts.

00:11:25: And the couple's also the receivers of the data and with the publish/subscribe architecture this is extremely elegant

00:11:32: okay understood makes sense and what is also interesting Dominic is that you actually build a whole company around mqtt tell us more about that and about hivemq

00:11:45: yes absolutely so I got in touch with mqd pretty early so as I mentioned in 2010 mqtt was released to the public.

00:11:55: And I had the pleasure to meet one of the founders are Nipper back then in 2012.

00:12:02: And so I wasn't was pretty early in the whole mqtt community and got to know the protocol better.

00:12:09: And one thing which which we in the company before we build a company which we were think about this okay.

00:12:18: We have so many billions of devices which will be connected to the internet over the next few years but there's clearly a technology missing for doing that because people back then wanted to do that with old-school technology from from the 90s.

00:12:32: Or that technology.

00:12:34: And so there was a technology missing for connecting all these devices and then we decided to build a product around it which is called - cool.

00:12:43: Which is an included he broker so one of the systems off the central data helps I just mentioned before.

00:12:49: And what we thought is okay what.

00:12:54: What is needed to bring the mqtt technology to all these large companies like like a BMW,

00:13:00: like a fog swing like other big car manufacturers as well as to logistics companies like your hand rake or other companies so what is needed to make a possible because it clearly solves an issue.

00:13:13: And it clearly helps reducing costs actually helps reduce the cost of basic the implementation it reduces the cost of the data transmission,

00:13:22: and you also get this kind of real-time communication functionality which helps to build better products for end customers.

00:13:31: Which and also by the way makes it much easier and much faster to go to market because it's really simple and communication for iot is basically a solve problem.

00:13:42: And this was where the idea about and this is with what we started and this is how,

00:13:48: now we are doing pretty well so we have customers worldwide deploying mqtt technology with hivemq in the in which in which Industries are they are they acting those customers we can you tell us a little bit more about that

00:14:01: Yeshua so we have for example we're doing pretty well in Automotive.

00:14:05: So if you're driving a German car you're very likely are using having to technology either that's interesting so everybody basically in Germany that is driving a German car is already using mqtt right.

00:14:18: I'm very likely as at least a few driving a newer car absolutely but also internationally so we have customers in the nationally here for different use cases for example connected car is something we are doing pretty well.

00:14:32: Um but also for manufacturing and Logistics so for example.

00:14:39: A lot of the critical business processes inside factories are digitized with mqtt and which uses are the hivemq,

00:14:47: why because we have some USPS on the market like Highway lability because critical systems must not go down and this is something we provide as well as scalability.

00:15:00: Massive message throughput so you can send a lot of data at the same time.

00:15:05: And Enterprise security because security is one of the key concerns a lot of decision-makers today are confronted when it comes to connecting their things.

00:15:14: And this is also something we help with,

00:15:17: by providing plug-and-play Solutions which people can shots deploy in the factories or somewhere else and so this is where we're doing pretty well,

00:15:26: also the whole industry 4.0 industrial iot Market is something we're doing a lot so we're working with a lot of German companies but also internationally,

00:15:37: and we have like a very large companies with literally,

00:15:43: almost hundred factories which are connected with our Technologies and what we provide here is release of.

00:15:50: So the let's say operators and the decision-makers get all the data from all their factories they need almost in real time,

00:15:59: I'm interested seems they need so in the cloud or even the mobile apps or wherever and this is something yes it's actually a game changer.

00:16:08: Form a composite this is also very doing pretty well as well as the logistics as well as smart city so for example reference customers of ours is stopped like a machine for the people here in Germany this is the.

00:16:20: This is the city of Munich and basically their the whole Transportation here's digitized,

00:16:27: with with our Technologies so so if people want to learn more we have also case studies online on our website - cool.com create and you are based in London Hood right oh yes yes sir.

00:16:40: Beautiful the very city outside Munich nude at the Munich Airport which which is yeah basically.

00:16:49: Not a Technology Center of the world but yeah we are doing pretty well here and but we have colleagues all over the world so from from Canada,

00:16:59: to to other countries so so yeah we are we are local here and a lot of people working out so Germany we have employees worldwide

00:17:09: yeah I think that's a great story Dominic because yeah mqtt will get yeah so much more

00:17:16: popular I think if all the connected devices get get more and more

00:17:23: um and it's all driven here out of land hood and I think also you told me that you were one of the first one or the the only participant in the from Germany

00:17:36: in the standardization board or what's the story behind that yeah so something I haven't told you this while in 2010,

00:17:45: the mqtt protocol was basically published royalty-free.

00:17:49: Um still this is not not yet it wasn't a standard because there was so much interest from the industry a lot of companies like IBM like Cisco and others and also including us.

00:18:01: Sto the entremet participants.

00:18:05: I thought okay we need to stay on the Isis so we brought this to to Oasis which is a standardization committee which also standardized technology different Technologies in the it space.

00:18:17: To make it a proper full standard so I was one of the.

00:18:22: The German people working on this so while nowadays there are more people here I was one of the first German and I believe even the only German person back then.

00:18:33: Which is interesting because even back then we brought in the use cases and the stars from our customers we already had so for example share now which is also reference customers of ours also there pretty early adopters.

00:18:46: And so we could bring back the real world experience.

00:18:50: To the specification committee and make sure that the technology actually has a fit in the real world and surrounded here and 2018 with mqtt 5 which is the newest version.

00:19:02: I'm a lot of companies also like Microsoft joint and But Here Also are other German folks involved but you but it's pretty much a standard driven by large companies and we are one of the niche players here are one of the smaller Converse actually to say,

00:19:17: I'm centralizing on that and this is so important because we are here we see us as the voice of the customer.

00:19:24: Because technology needs to be grounded in the real world and I personally dislike standards and communication protocols which are invented by people in their Ivory Tower and then basically released to the public.

00:19:38: I am a bit more pragmatic here in the pragmatic side I do believe standards need to come from the users from the other from the adoption directly and then.

00:19:49: This needs to be to be brought back to standardization you need to direct feedback of the installations that are out there and and the problems also right right.

00:20:00: And frankly this is also what we see today is that there are many communication protocols,

00:20:06: based on mqtt which are a bit more higher level that because included he is really a more of a generic technology used for a lot of different Industries and we see industry specific protocols emerging,

00:20:18: so for example vdi 50/50 which is more important which is built for hdvs but also other Technologies for smart cities,

00:20:26: things like mqtt sparkplug built for scada systems and Manufacturing.

00:20:32: And so a lot of the standards are emerging based on the standard technology and this is a this is really great I'm super excited about this,

00:20:41: and this is something I believe in a few years we see,

00:20:45: a lot of mainstream adoption of them and that's why I thought it's so interesting also for our Logistics audience because it

00:20:52: it may seem quite technical but it's actually very important for all the logistics robots on the shop floor that are coming now and the vda 50/50 that you already mentioned,

00:21:05: is actually the standard using mqtt as a base technology for the standard

00:21:13: and Json files as a description method yeah and so mqtt will get more and more important also in the logistics sector

00:21:25: and that's why yes it seems to be also interesting for us as as Logistics guys right now absolutely and I think.

00:21:34: Even more is here to come because in the end even if I specialize in logistics.

00:21:39: There is a lot of value to capture by connecting things and connecting assets so and still a lot of the Technologies used today and Logistics.

00:21:48: For example also for not only on the H-E-B sister something of course it is super important but also if you look at the the,

00:21:58: whole Space of logistics there is a lot of let's say moving devices you have a there are a lot of assets you need to monitor you need to make real-time decisions,

00:22:08: and this is exactly what mqt was built for,

00:22:11: and this is something I expect that a lot of adoption of the mqt technology will happen in the next few years and this will probably get the industry standard.

00:22:20: For a lot of the use cases we have an ocean six legs and also for all the

00:22:24: two tracking sensors that we are using in mqd day in the in the logistics mqtt plays a role and even for the new network that is being launched right now for the a narrowband iot network.

00:22:37: Um I think that's also using mqtt yes yes you can use this and there's a lot of development right here for example you mentioned in the iot,

00:22:47: so for narrow band iot where you have a lot of a very don't have a lot of bandwidth.

00:22:54: But you have a lot of latency which means things are extremely slow you don't get off data through you need a scarf lightweight Technologies.

00:23:01: And there is even at this is more future looking here what you're currently standardizing at the Oasis is a technology called mqtt SN,

00:23:11: which is n QT for sensor networks which is built for local sensor networks which are also,

00:23:17: it's very interesting for Logistics use cases because very often you have is this mesh networks deployed inside inside factories are you have also deployed this inside the transportation modules and and vehicles.

00:23:32: And then you also have this Cloud connectivity which you can do with equity for sensor networks also over and brt for example so you can even,

00:23:42: use that in very remote areas where you don't have any kind of mobile connectivity and this is very useful so so imagine that we can from a city called on suit is a very rural area,

00:23:54: so there are definitely if you're driving around the are.

00:23:58: Sports very do not have any mobile connectivity at all so this is very neat and BLT for example because and Purity something you actually have and so that's super interesting space a lot of developments are here.

00:24:10: But also here mqtt for sensor networks will play a major role in the next few years for the oven maybe one last

00:24:18: technically question Dominique how could I imagine that if I want to set up my my Logistics or my.

00:24:26: My assembly plant or whatever when I want to set up some sensors and use your mqtt broker as a as a middleware to the internet and to the cloud.

00:24:41: Enter two broke itself is already in the cloud so tell us how fast is it to set up something like that is that a process of several month or is this really quick process.

00:24:54: Just to give us an idea now this is an extremely quick process so actually most

00:24:59: most customers are amazed how easy it is to set up because people are used to very complex everywhere Technologies for example manufacturing space more like OPC UA you find a lot your talk about months to even get something set up,

00:25:10: with mqt Technologies,

00:25:12: it's most companies have success in at least a week and we've seen companies doing it in one day as startups even smaller even vaster so because you really don't need a lot of things you need a broker,

00:25:27: inside the factory which is pretty easy to set up is basically download and install.

00:25:32: And then you have to get some sensors which are nqt enabled which many of them on the market are already.

00:25:39: So especially if you're in like in a factory if you're using like a PLC from from any model render.

00:25:46: Then you usually have mqtt support already built in.

00:25:50: So so this is easy and even if you do not have M QT built in there are gateways there converters modules.

00:25:57: And off the shelf available that convert to mqtt automatically you need a broker in the factory Center here and from there you can send the data to the cloud.

00:26:07: Which is called technically broaching you brush there to the cloud and four people wondering how do I get a broker in the cloud.

00:26:14: It's easy there are vendors available you can host it yourself or you can just go sub to something like - puke loud,

00:26:21: which is free for 100 devices no credit card required nothing with just get your own instance you can connect up to basically 100 Factories at the same time without any cost.

00:26:34: And you basically just pay the data volume so it's extremely easy and I would say and I would even challenge companies that.

00:26:44: Any company should be able to have a proof-of-concept banana two weeks and I would say even under week okay great I mean sounds amazing,

00:26:53: where do you see the future of Internet of things and and all the connectivity maybe if we take a horizon until 2030 right now where will we go so I think the future is extremely exciting

00:27:07: so what we see today,

00:27:09: is is one of the major things that will drive Humanity forward so while so the steam engine was one of the most important things ever invented.

00:27:19: And now people argue that the internet might be even more important or at least as important.

00:27:24: And what's Happening Now The Internet of Things So basically not only connecting humans but connecting everything.

00:27:31: Which will change the lives of every human on earth dramatically to the positive.

00:27:36: And so this is so we are now on a Tipping Point to something extremely great nowadays we have,

00:27:44: approximately 4 billion people connected to the internet and a lot of studies say that by people 2,000 Lord things for billion,

00:27:53: people people okay yes and by the end of of 2030 we will probably have most of humanity connected to the internet which is a major achievement I mean we're on exponential curve here.

00:28:07: But if you look at the Internet of Things,

00:28:09: as I speak today we have 40 billion so 10 times people on Earth connected to the internal ready right now already right now,

00:28:18: and if you look at a 10 others like for example I DC with and I predicted until 2025 we have 70 billion devices connected to the internet.

00:28:28: Which means we are on a rapid growth this is something like something we haven't seen before.

00:28:35: And if the acceleration continues we will basically but mm whatever 40 or 50 we will have connected.

00:28:45: Almost everything and this is exciting on the one side we will also need to have a lot of regulations.

00:28:52: But I do truly believe that the technology that is built today will drive Humanity forward and also make the life of a lot of people much easier much better

00:29:01: and so yeah this is great I'm really looking forward to the future and what would use guess be for the amount of

00:29:10: device is connected with mqtt or using mqtt just as a percentage is this,

00:29:17: fifty percent of that will be connected with mqtt or is it more or less I think in the future will be even more so if you look at different studies for example the eclipse Foundation did a study.

00:29:28: With developers and iot projects and there are approximately 50% of all connectivity was already done with mqtt and this is growing every year,

00:29:39: so so we have web technology still but also iot technology like mqtt.

00:29:46: And I would say at least fifty percent of all connectivity will be done with mqtt over the next few years.

00:29:53: Um actually I this would be the lower end I would say even that the 75% of all connectivity in the future at least to the cloud and back,

00:30:03: will be done over mqtt and actually without most people even knowing so I think this is the exciting part

00:30:10: interesting Dominic so where could people go if they would like to learn more about mqtt I saw that you actually have a YouTube channel about that and and where you can get,

00:30:23: and I get the first impression of it and learn the first steps what else right.

00:30:30: Right so if people want to connect with him personally I'm on LinkedIn and I am also on Twitter.

00:30:36: So so you can Google me or look at look at one of the links we can provide so my name is Dominic obermaier.

00:30:45: And I will see company - q and if you go to the hivemq blog which is on hive and Q.com.

00:30:54: You will find a lot of material around mqtt you will find a 10/10 part blog post series which we call mqtt Essentials there.

00:31:04: All people can learn from the basics to basically professional use everything in one hour.

00:31:11: And we also have a YouTube series here which you mentioned which you can also Google mqtt Essentials and YouTube will give you the videos.

00:31:20: And we have a lot of educational material here because it's so critical to share the information and this is something,

00:31:28: we are ya doing a lottery hivemq and I personally really also enjoy evangelizing on that and talking about this

00:31:35: well Dominic that was very interesting and I see there is a lot more to come with mqtt so it's good that we had to start today and I thank you very much for joining the logistics tribe

00:31:49: thank you for having me bye-bye all right that was the logistics tribe podcast episode about mqtt

00:31:57: I hope you're a little bit more knowledgeable about this topic now if you liked Today's Show check out some of the other episodes be published around iot related topics actually quite a few of them now in the library there.

00:32:09: And don't forget to subscribe to the logistics tribe podcast you don't miss any of the future episodes I'm boss felgendreher until next.

00:32:17: Music.