IBM outlined a significant step forward in its Smarter Planet strategy with the introduction of a "MessageSight" appliance that leverages Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol to handle the billions of mobile devices and sensors increasing being deployed in automobiles, traffic management systems, smart buildings and household appliances.
IBM said its MessageSight appliance is capable of supporting one million concurrent sensors or smart devices and can scale up to thirteen million messages per second. IBM MessageSight is designed to complement and extend the IBM MobileFirst offerings, which is a collection of mobile enterprise software, services, cloud and analytics capabilities that help a corporation design, deploy, secure and manage mobile strategies and apps.
MQTT was recently proposed to become an OASIS standard. It provides a lightweight messaging transport for communication in machine to machine (M2M) and mobile environments.
IBM said MQTT is ideal for small, low-power sensors with low communications bandwidth capabilities.
"When we launched our Smarter Planet strategy nearly five years ago, our strategic belief was that the world was going to be profoundly changed as it became more instrumented, interconnected and intelligent. IBM MessageSight is a major technological step forward in continuing that strategy," said Marie Wieck, general manager, WebSphere, IBM. "Until now, no technology has been able to handle this volume of messages and devices. What's even more exciting is that this only scratches the surface of what's to come as we continue down this path of a Smarter Planet."
"To realize the vision of a Smarter Planet, we must first enable the universe of instrumented sensors, devices and machines to communicate more efficiently while sharing, managing and integrating large volumes of data at a rate much faster than ever before," said Bob S. Johnson, director of development for Sprint's Velocity Program. "We have been testing IBM MessageSight for some initial projects and are excited about the capabilities that it could help us deliver to the vehicle and beyond."
IBM also announced new mobile analytics capabilities and cloud services for its MobileFirst portfolio, including geo-location services for developers. Geo-location triggers can be used to extend applications to take contextual action based on a user's location to provide personalized service. Additionally, newly integrated mobile app testing capabilities enable organizations to improve app quality while reducing the effort needed to test across different mobile platforms.
IBM's new cloud services includes a new mobile marketing capability for creating digital passes for employees in Apple's Passbook. Accessed through the cloud, organizations can quickly design and issue passes for loyalty, events, ticketing, payments and more without having to purchase on-premise development tools.
http://www.ibm.com/mobilefirst
