What is MQTT?
MQTT is a message broker system to distribute messages from any type of client (sensors, computers, etc.) over ethernet. These messages are published on a specified topic to the server(broker). Clients can subscribe to one or multiple topics to be informed whenever a message to this topic has been published. Besides the topic, a message can also carry a payload to transfer data to all subscribers.
External broker
While SmoothMQTT brings its own broker, sometimes it is desirable to have an external program take over this role.
Mosquitto
One of the most popular programs is called Mosquitto. It can be installed as a service on any major OS and provide an MQTT broker.
Cloud Broker
We regularly test SmoothMQTT against AWS and are optimistic that other mqtt cloud broker providers will work as well.