IBM Unveils 'Internet of Things' Appliance

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At its annual Impact conference, IBM debuted a new appliance that could play a key role in the “Internet of Things.” Called IBM MessageSight, the device will manage and route messages from one machine to another using the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) format.

PCWorld’s Joab Jackson reported, “Preparing its customers to join the emerging ‘Internet of things,’ IBM has released a new appliance built to manage and route a voluminous amount of machine-to-machine small data messages. Using the MQTT (the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) format, the IBM MessageSight appliance is capable of processing over 13 million messages per second, all of which could arrive from as many as 1 million end-nodes.”

InformationWeek’s Doug Henschen added, “News of the ready-to-run, real-time data-capture and analysis machine was accompanied by the introduction of mobile application development, process management, API connectivity and Web services capabilities also designed to better connect the so-called Internet of Things. The underpinning of IBM MessageSight is the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol, an open standard for machine-to-machine connectivity proposed by the OASIS technical standards body.”

All Things D’s Arik Hesseldahl explained, “When you hear the word ‘message’ in relation to the Internet, you probably think of a person sending a message to another person or perhaps a group of people. But the fact is that messages are increasingly being sent from one machine to another without a human being in the chain of communication. Factory equipment is reporting operational data to some server somewhere. Utility stations report their operating conditions or send notifications of repairs that might be needed. Weather stations constantly report temperature and wind speed and so on. You get the idea. When you hear the phrase ‘Internet of Things,’ this is part of what it means. But in this case it’s often referred to as ‘machine-to-machine’ communications, or M2M for short.”

GigaOm quoted IBM, which said, “Over the next 15 years, the number of machines and sensors connected to the Internet will explode. According to IMS Research, there will be more than 22 billion web-connected devices by 2020. These new devices will generate more 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data every day, while every hour enough information is consumed by Internet traffic to fill seven million DVDs.”