So far in this book, we have generated data or an event from a device running at the network edge. We have discussed various telecommunication mediums and technologies to move that data from the WPAN, WLAN, and WAN. There are many complexities and subtleties in building and bridging these network connections from non-IP-based PAN networks to IP-based WAN networks. There are also protocol conversions that need to be understood. Standard protocols are the tools that bind and encapsulate raw data from a sensor to something meaningful and formatted for the cloud to accept. One of the principal differences between an IOT system and M2M system is that M2M may communicate over a WAN to a dedicated server or system with no encapsulated protocol whatsoever. The IoT by definition is based on communication between endpoints and services with the internet being the common network fabric.

This chapter will also detail the necessary protocols prevalent in the IOT space such as Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) and CoAP.