IoT News, Publications, Magazine & Newsletter | IoT Now

EMQ, the provider of open source IoT data infrastructure, has expanded its partner ecosystem by becoming a contributing member of the Eclipse Foundation, the open source software foundations. EMQ has also joined the Eclipse IoT Working Group and Eclipse Sparkplug Working Group to help foster standardisation and innovation around the MQTT and Sparkplug protocols worldwide.

The Eclipse Foundation is committed to providing a “mature, scalable, and business-friendly environment” in which industry leaders can advance open source specification development, compliance certification, and industry education. By joining its membership, EMQ will team up with influential leaders and technology participants from around the globe to shape the future of IoT.

Early in 2011, the Eclipse Foundation introduced the IoT Working Group to develop industry best practices, deployment frameworks and standards to help commercial-grade IoT projects succeed. The Eclipse Paho Project was built through Eclipse IoT in 2012 to strengthen the open source implementations of MQTT and MQTT-SN protocols, and in the last decade, MQTT has rapidly become the de-facto standard for IoT. In 2020, the Sparkplug Working Group was launched to drive the evolution and broad adoption of the Sparkplug Topic and Payload Specification for MQTT.

“Today we welcome EMQ to the Eclipse Foundation and we look forward to their contribution to the Sparkplug and IoT communities,” says Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. “There is tremendous momentum within these communities. With the recently announced Sparkplug compatibility program, EMQ’s participation will not only contribute to future OSS development, but also help accelerate MQTT adoption.

Since its inception, EMQ has been committed to advancing the MQTT standard for reliable IoT messaging. It joined OASIS OPEN as a foundational sponsor in 2020 to drive the adoption of MQTT in enterprise-level IoT applications. EMQ has been developing its high-performance distributed MQTT messaging server EMQX to accelerate the connectivity and integration of a wide spectrum of IoT applications since 2017.

CEO and founder at EMQ, Feng Lee, comments that “We are thrilled to be part of the Eclipse family and its Eclipse IoT and Sparkplug Working Groups. We believe our experience in MQTT development will be valuable to the community, and we look forward to accelerating MQTT standardisation and innovation and actively contributing to more open-source development together with our partners and members of the broader community.”

“Sparkplug is growing in recognition as the best solution for IoT device compatibility issues and improving the interoperability and scalability of IIoT solutions in oil and gas, energy, manufacturing, smart cities and other related industries. EMQ has long been a proponent of MQTT standards and MQTT Sparkplug solutions. Through this membership, we have the opportunity to contribute directly to the Eclipse Paho project and the development of Sparkplug. We’ll continue to work closely with our partners to grow Industrial IoT best practices at scale,” Feng Lee adds.

EMQX has become the world’s most scalable and reliable MQTT Broker, adopted by over 20,000 global users from over 50 countries and connecting more than 100 million IoT devices worldwide. It is fully compatible with the MQTT Sparkplug B protocol, supporting a true plug-and-play IIoT solution for Industry 4.0.

Comment on this article below or via Twitter: @IoTNow_OR @jcIoTnow