MQTT
MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight, publish-subscribe messaging protocol designed for constrained devices and low-bandwidth networks. It is the dominant protocol for IoT devices, sensors, and edge systems to send telemetry data to a central collector.
The protocol behind IoT telemetry
MQTT works through a broker model. Devices publish messages to topics, and any subscriber listening on that topic receives the messages. The protocol is minimal: small packet overhead, low power consumption, and it works over unreliable networks. That is why it is the standard in industrial IoT, smart buildings, fleet tracking, and environmental monitoring.
The publish-subscribe model decouples producers from consumers. A sensor does not need to know what is on the other end. A dashboard, a database, or an alerting system can subscribe independently. This makes MQTT architectures flexible and easy to extend.
The challenge is that MQTT itself does not store data. It delivers messages. You need a database on the other end to persist the telemetry, and that database needs to handle the volume, velocity, and time-stamped nature of the incoming data.
How Arc handles MQTT
Arc has native MQTT ingestion. You can point your MQTT broker at Arc and telemetry data flows directly into columnar Parquet storage. Combined with Telegraf or a direct MQTT subscriber, Arc handles the full path from sensor to queryable analytical data.
Arc is a SQL-native time-series database. Open Parquet on storage you own, single Go binary, production-ready in 30 seconds.