In the Industry 4.0 movement we are in today, companies going through the digital transformation process have to turn data into information and get it in the structures people want, how they want it and when they want it, to facilitate decisions that achieve the desired business results. Unifying data means accessing data where it lives, no matter the protocol required. MQTT is used extensively as a communication transport in many applications, and in this blog we'll show you an implementation.
Cogent DataHub has long addressed the digital transformation need for interoperability by offering extensive support for diverse data sources. DataHub's architecture allows it to act as both an MQTT client, to take data from DataHub’s many sources and publish it to MQTT brokers, and subscribe to data in MQTT brokers, and an MQTT server (broker), facilitating communication between them. This dual functionality, similar to its capabilities with other industrial protocols like OPC, is essential for delivering interoperability, a key success factor for digital transformation success.
Why it matters?
Cogent DataHub empowers operations by enabling data flow between systems that are often siloed—like OPC servers, databases, spreadsheets, and MQTT clients—without custom coding. The goal is to deliver data and information the enables teams to monitor equipment performance, 
detect issues early with analytics tools, automate alerts, and share contextualized data across business systems. As a result, operations gain faster insights, reduce downtime, and improve coordination within the team by unifying data from edge devices, control systems, cloud, and enterprise platforms.
Quick Tutorial: Configuring DataHub as MQTT Broker for Seamless Integration
The following short video demonstrates how truly easy it is to configure the DataHub Smart MQTT Broker for acting as a "gateway" between MQTT Clients such as field devices and other applications and other supported interfaces including OPC, ODBC, even legacy DDE, and many other data sources.
In this video you will learn how to set up the Smart MQTT Broker feature of Cogent DataHub V11 for the following functions:
- How to enable the MQTT Broker of Cogent DataHub including specification of the TCP port to be used for connections to the MQTT Broker by an MQTT Client.
- How to interpret raw MQTT messages from MQTT Clients for parsing into points/items using user defined message formats for flexibility with any MQTT capable system.
- How to access MQTT Broker data via other supported DataHub interfaces.
Summary and Next Steps: Set Up Cogent DataHub and Connect Your Data
Just to summarize, in this video, I've shown you:
- How to enable MQTT Broker functionality in Cogent DataHub.
- How to configure the syntax of MQTT Messages for parsing into data items.
- How to access MQTT data from Cogent DataHub using an OPC DA or UA clients.
- Other possible ways to bridge MQTT data to other data sources including databases, web pages, Modbus devices, DDE sources such as Excel or even email/text alerts.
Don't forget to read our V11 new features blog post to learn about the other great features in DataHub V11 or visit the Cogent DataHub website for full details of the release.
Are you ready to start integrating your process systems with the IIoT cloud?
Reach out to our technical experts with your questions and subscribe to our blog for more quick and easy DataHub tutorials and tips. Then, make sure to download the DataHub trial to try it yourself for free.
