Data collection in IoT : A comparison of MQTT implementations

Abstract: This report investigates reliability within the Internet of Things with a focus on the messaging protocol MQTT. Within MQTT we explore the options for ensuring reliability, mainly Quality of Service. We attempt to compare a few different implementations of the MQTT protocol over different Quality of Service levels. This comparison occurs through experiments that measure the communication size in bytes, and the time to perform, a simple publish-type communication. We find that there are some differences that seem likely to be impactful enough that some implementations are preferable, depending on the application and resources available. This report also covers some basic theory about IoT systems and their parts.