IoT Protocol Popularity: According to MS Azure Devices
A challenge with IoT is the sheer number of different protocols and standards that are discussed makes it difficult to understand what protocols are being used. Therefore, I was a bit intrigued by browsing the Microsoft Azure Certifed for IoT device catalog. This is a listing of devices MS has certified to work with Azure IoT.
The catalog provides a nice filtering mechanism to view devices based on operating system, connectivity, cloud protocols, etc. This is a very unscientific survey but I do think it provides some interesting insight into what protcols device manufacturers are actually implementing.
There appears to be about 1290 devices listed in the catalog.
Cloud Connectivity Standards
HTTP is the most popular connectivity protocol connecting to Azure with 736 devices. AMQPS is second with 641 devices and MQTT with 634.
MS Azure only supports these 3 protocols but it is interesting that there appear to be equal support across all 3 protocols.
Industrial Protocols
For Industrial protocols, Modbus comes out in front with 248 devices followed by CAN with 168 and OPC-UA with 123. Not very surprising that Modbus and CAN are at the top since they are well established industrial protocols. OPC-UA seems to have industry tractions and these numbers would demonstrate device manufacturers are implementing it.
Connectivity Protocols
Not a huge suprised that LAN is the main connectivity protocol with 1135 devices followed by Wifi at 664. Bluetooth was the next most popular at 407. Cellular connectivity via 3G (368) and LTE (344) came in last.
It certainly appears the bulk of the devices are being connected not over cellular networks. Not sure if this is consistent with other data or a biase in the device sample?
Operating Systems
Windows 8/19 was the most popular operating system used by 481 devices. Very interesting to see Ubuntu come in second place with 269 devices. Most likely reflecting the focus Canonical has place on IoT devices. Yocto was a distant thirs place with 76 devices.
My guess is that a more general survey Ubuntu and other flavours of Linux would be better placed.
Industries
Finally, to give an idea of the industries these device manunfacturers target with their devices: Retail and Consumer Goods (276), Process Manufacturing (268), Smart City (230), and Discrete Manufacturing (220).
This appears to reflect general industry surveys on the key industries for IoT.