Machine interfaces

In this version, the supported operation (HTTP method) for sending messages to the Information Router is POST. The support for MQTT is under development.

AMQP is a standard messaging protocol for the Internet of Things (IoT). It is designed as an extremely lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport that is ideal for connecting remote devices with a small code footprint and minimal network bandwidth.

Information Router supports the AMQP protocol and the publish-subscribe pattern between devices and its backend. Devices publish to an AMQP broker to a certain exchange and Information Router subscribes to it or a linked queue in order to receive the request. Information Router then forwards the received message to the target service, most commonly via REST. The response from the service is subsequently received back by the Information Router and published to a topic on which the device in turn is subscribed. The response to the device is currently limited as only error messages are published back.

When southbound AMQP protocol is enabled, the queues are automatically generated. Subscription queues are generated on startup, response queues are generated only when the first response is sent back. The tenant ID is dynamically filled based on the relevant environment variable.

MQTT is a standard messaging protocol for the Internet of Things (IoT). It is designed as an extremely lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport that is ideal for connecting remote devices with a small code footprint and minimal network bandwidth.

Information Router supports the MQTT protocol between devices and its backend, meaning that the device publishes to an MQTT broker on a certain topic and Information Router subscribes to it in order to receive the message. Internally, Information Router then forwards the received message to the target service, most commonly via REST. The response from the service is received by the Information Router again and published back to a topic on which the device is subscribed. The response to the device is currently limited to error messages.

Apache Kafka is an open-source distributed event streaming platform used in many applications and domains with focus on high-performance and low latency, scalability, and high availability, e.g. for the Internet of Things (IoT). It has its own messaging protocol. It is designed as an extremely fast publish/subscribe or event streaming messaging transport that is ideal for connecting remote devices with a small code footprint and minimal network bandwidth.

Information Router supports the Kafka protocol between devices and its backend, meaning that the device publishes to a Kafka broker (or Kafka cluster) on a certain topic and Information Router subscribes to it and publishes to another topic, in order for the device to receive the response to that request if needed. Internally, Information Router forwards the received message to the target service, most commonly via REST. The response from the service is received by Information Router and published back to a topic on which the device is subscribed. The response to the device is currently limited as only error messages are published back.

When southbound Kafka protocol is enabled the topics are automatically generated. The tenant ID is dynamically filled based on the relevant environment variable.