journal article·2021-05-26Open access

A Performance Analysis of Internet of Things Networking Protocols: Evaluating MQTT, CoAP, OPC UA

Daniel Silva, Liliana I. Carvalho, José Soares, Rute C. Sofia

Applied Sciences· Volume 11· Issue 11

Abstract

IoT data exchange is supported today by different communication protocols and different protocolar frameworks, each of which with its own advantages and disadvantages, and often co-existing in a way that is mandated by vendor policies. Although different protocols are relevant in different domains, there is not a protocol that provides better performance (jitter, latency, energy consumption) across different scenarios. The focus of this work is two-fold. First, to provide a comparison of the different available solutions in terms of protocolar features such as type of transport, type of communication pattern support, security aspects, including Named-data networking as relevant example of an Information-centric networking architecture. Secondly, the work focuses on evaluating three of the most popular protocols used both in Consumer as well as in Industrial IoT environments: MQTT, CoAP, and OPC UA. The experimentation has been carried out first on a local testbed for MQTT, COAP and OPC UA. Then, larger experiments have been carried out for MQTT and CoAP, based on the large-scale FIT-IoT testbed. Results show that CoAP is the protocol that achieves across all scenarios lowest time-to-completion, while OPC UA, albeit exhibiting less variability, resulted in higher time-to-completion in comparison to CoAP or MQTT.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Caching and Content Delivery · IoT and Edge/Fog Computing · IoT Networks and Protocols

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Cognitive and People-Centric Research Unit (COPELABS), University Lusofona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, 1749-024 Lisbon, Portugal

Fortiss—Research Institute of the Free State of Bavaria for Software Intensive Services and Systems, 80805 Munich, Germany

Department of Informatics Engineering, University Lusofona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, 1749-024 Lisbon, Portugal

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