LUDWIGSBURG, Germany,
Nov. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM
(NYSE: IBM) and Eurotech (ETH.MI) today announced that they are
contributing software to accelerate and support the development of
a new generation of smarter wireless and mobile devices. The
technology, which could become the basis for a new standard of
mobile connectivity and interoperability, will be contributed to
the Eclipse Foundation open source community.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090226/PH75840LOGO)
The Eclipse Foundation, founded by IBM in 2001, is celebrating
its 10th anniversary at EclipseCon in Germany.
Originally developed by IBM and Eurotech, the contributed
Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol is in use today
among some industrial, mobile, and consumer applications, providing
reliable device connectivity in industries such as transportation,
energy, military, financial, social media and medical. Uses of MQTT
range across projects as diverse as real-time monitoring for a
ConocoPhillips pipeline, to a new lightweight mobile messaging
application for Facebook.
Billions of embedded devices – from RFID tag readers,
smartphones and cardiac monitors to GPS-aware systems, thermostats
and smart appliances – can be interconnected to one another.
Fueled by rapid growth in wireless broadband connectivity, this
number is rapidly expanding. There are 9
billion connected devices in the world today and according to a
recent study conducted by Ericsson AB, that number is expected to
reach 50 billion by 2020. (1)
Many of these devices tend to be industry focused and tied to
proprietary technologies and platforms, making true connectivity a
complex task. Further, there is an influx of instrumented
products, such as power meters and washing machines some of which
do not yet have access to the power of the internet. By
connecting all of these devices with an open-source, cross-industry
messaging technology, there is potential to create new systems of
systems that can operate with one another like never before. This
would help organizations more easily embrace growth opportunities
across a wide range of industries, including retail, healthcare and
automotive where the use of mobile and wireless devices are
transforming the way they work.
For instance, today's smarter cities allow existing systems to
alert operators of a broken water main and report the extent of
flooding in streets and subways. However they are often closed
systems. An open messaging protocol can be used to openly publish
these events, enabling public and private transit systems to share
and monitor these critical alerts. As a result, agencies would be
able to adjust traffic signals, change routes, and notify commuters
of alternative routes, transportation, lodging and meals on their
mobile devices.
The architecture that the contributed technology enables can
adapt easily to existing systems and provide a new level of
connectivity across a wide range of systems – without requiring
significant programming or reconfiguration of legacy monitoring
systems.
"Just as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) enabled open
communication over the internet, we believe the creation of an open
protocol for messaging can do the same for smarter systems,"
explains Mike Milinkovich, executive
director, Eclipse Foundation. "History has proven that driving open
standards, such as IBM and Eurotech's contribution to Eclipse, is a
proven strategy for rapid and widespread industry adoption."
Based on an industry proven open protocol, the MQTT technology
will provide the missing piece needed to usher in this new level of
accessibility and connectivity among systems, and enable the
creation of next generation Machine-to-Machine (M2M) solutions.
Open Communities Are Essential to Advance Connectivity and
Open Markets
To further accelerate the development of these next generation
products, Eurotech and IBM are also announcing that they will join
as founding members with Sierra Wireless in a new
Machine-to-Machine Industry Working Group at the Eclipse
Foundation. The goal of the M2M Industry Working Group is to
create an open development environment that will make it easier to
integrate and connect systems of systems.
A scalable protocol like MQTT will bridge a wide range of
platforms and devices including embedded, mobile, Web 2.0 and
Enterprise IT. When backed by the open source community, it will
allow system developers and integrators to usher in the next
generation of applications with higher levels of innovation and
functionality in order to create smarter buildings, industries and
cities.
"As a founding member of the M2M Industry Working Group, Sierra
Wireless is working together with IBM and Eurotech to advance the
creation of software that simplifies and accelerates the creation
of M2M applications," said Emmanuel Walckenaer, senior vice
president and general manager, Solutions and Services for Sierra
Wireless. "Open source contributions to the Eclipse community give
developers confidence in the long term viability, continuous
innovation, and ongoing community support of their M2M software
platform."
The Eclipse Foundation became an independent not-for-profit
corporation in 2004. Since then, it has transformed the software
industry. The Eclipse community has played a critical role in
IBM's product development. Over the last ten years, IBM has shipped
more than 800 products based on Eclipse technology.
The IBM and Eurotech project proposal for their contribution is
available at: http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/technology.paho.
For more information on IBM's open source initiatives, visit:
http://www.ibm.com/opensource.
For more information on Eurotech, visit:
http://www.eurotech.com.
For more information on Eclipse, visit:
http://www.eclipse.org.
For more information about Sierra Wireless, visit
www.sierrawireless.com.
For more information on the role that MQTT messaging technology
is playing in helping to build a smarter planet, visit
http://mqtt.org, or view the video Messaging for a Smarter Planet
.
(1) Ericsson AB "Infrastructure Innovation - Can the Challenge
be met?" Sept 2010
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SOURCE Eurotech