MQTT monitoring with PRTG
Maximize IIoT efficiency & prevent failures in your production processes
- Avoid malfunctions or failures during the production process
- Get a combined overview of your IT and OT networks
- Identify bottlenecks in your production or building automation
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PRTG MQTT monitoring: What you’ll find on this page
PRTG makes MQTT broker monitoring as easy as it gets
Custom alerts and data visualization let you quickly identify and prevent MQTT traffic and other performance issues.
5 reasons why to choose PRTG as your MQTT monitoring tool
As Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) has become one of the most important protocols in the IIoT and IoT world, it should also be a key component of your monitoring concept. The solution: Paessler PRTG, your all-in-one monitoring tool that combines IT, industrial IoT, and OT network monitoring in a single pane of glass.
View from a central dashboard
Do away with checking IT and IoT devices with multiple tools and on multiple dashboards. With MQTT integration in PRTG, you get a combined overview of your classic IT and MQTT devices – all in one place.
What’s more: The PRTG Map Editor functionality lets you easily create custom dashboards using drag and drop so that you have the status of all your critical devices and applications at a glance.
Monitor converged IT/OT networks
In industrial IT environments, many OT network components such as PLCs, industrial PCs, SCADA systems, HMIs, or MES cannot be monitored with traditional IT monitoring protocols.
PRTG’s MQTT monitoring, in combination with your smart industrial gateways, easily brings OT network data into your IT monitoring concept.
Benefit from out-of-the-box integrations
Beyond support for all classic IT standards, PRTG offers a RESTful API, JSON, and MQTT support out of the box.
Not to mention OPC UA and SCADA integration to easily monitor shop floors, IoT devices, and other IT devices, applications, and services that don't use common IT technologies.
Get full MQTT server monitoring
No need to worry whether a connection to the MQTT broker – or server – can be established, or if it accepts messages or forwards them to a matching subscriber at all.
With PRTG’s preconfigured sensor types for monitoring MQTT, you can keep an eye on the availability and connection time of your MQTT broker 24/7.
Receive custom alerts & notifications
Set it – that is, thresholds – and forget it. With PRTG’s real-time alerts and customizable notification templates, you’re always notified in time if there is an issue in your infrastructure.
Use MQTT notifications, for example, to forward alerts, warnings, or any other information to a third-party system of your choice that can subscribe to MQTT topics.
What MQTT monitoring looks like in PRTG
Diagnose network issues by continuously tracking your industrial IT and OT networks. Show MQTT connection status and quality, message throughput and latency, topic and resource usage, and other key metrics in real time. Visualize monitoring data in clear graphs and dashboards to identify problems more easily. Gain the overview you need to troubleshoot all kinds of MQTT traffic, health, and performance issues.
Device tree view of the complete monitoring setup
Preconfigured MQTT Round Trip sensor in PRTG
Custom PRTG dashboard for monitoring a manufacturing process
Start monitoring using the MQTT protocol with PRTG and see how it can make your network more reliable and your job easier.
“All-around winning “The real beauty of PRTG is the endless possibilities it offers” “PRTG Network MonitorIT experts agree: Paessler PRTG is a great solution for IT infrastructure monitoring
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How MQTT monitoring with PRTG works
PRTG comes with more than 250 preconfigured sensor types out of the box for monitoring your IT, OT, and IoT infrastructures on all levels – from hardware to applications, from on-prem installations to cloud and virtual environments. For MQTT monitoring, there are 3 native sensors that allow you to monitor everything that communicates via MQTT.
MQTT Round Trip
The MQTT Round Trip sensor monitors the availability of an MQTT broker, connects to the broker as a publishing and subscribing client, and sends the data packets using a predefined topic. It can show the following:
- The time it takes the publisher to connect
- The RTT of the message (after both publisher and subscriber connect)
- Round trip status
- The time it takes the subscriber to connect
MQTT Statistics
The MQTT Statistics sensor monitors an MQTT topic. It can show the following:
- Number of active MQTT topics
- Number of messages received since the last scan
- Received payload
MQTT Subscribe Custom
The MQTT Subscribe Custom sensor subscribes to an MQTT topic and monitors up to ten custom numeric values from the received JSON data. It can show the following (examples only):
- Temperature
- Humidity
- Illuminance
- Pressure
Discover our new product extension
Paessler PRTG OPC UA Server
Do you want to have a full overview of your OT environment in your supervisory and control systems – including traditional IT network components like routers, switches, firewalls, and more?
PRTG OPC UA Server consolidates monitoring data from your OT network and the IIoT in your control system. View all your data in one place for centralized monitoring and alarms.
Your MQTT monitor at a glance – even on the go
Set up PRTG in minutes and use it on almost any mobile device.
Find the root cause of the problem with our PRTG MQTT monitoring solution
Real-time notifications mean faster troubleshooting so that you can act before more serious issues occur.
PRTG is compatible with all major vendors, products, and systems
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With ScriptRunner, Paessler integrates a powerful event automation platform into PRTG Network Monitor.
ScriptRunner
“Excellent tool for detailed monitoring. Alarms and notifications work greatly. Equipment addition is straight forward and server initial setup is very easy. ...feel safe to purchase it if you intend to monitor a large networking landscape.”
Infrastructure and Operations Engineer in the Communications Industry, firm size 10B - 30B USD
Get your free white papers
White paper I
In modern industrial IT, the right teams need the right data. Our guide shows how to implement holistic monitoring that brings elements from IT, OT and IIoT into your dashboards.
White paper II
Our second guide gives you inspiration and ideas for dashboards that feature IT, OT and IIoT data – all in one place. We show you what truly convergent industrial dashboards look like!
PRTG makes MQTT broker monitoring as easy as it gets
Custom alerts and data visualization let you quickly identify and prevent MQTT traffic and other performance issues.
Monitor MQTT: FAQ
What is MQTT?
MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight messaging protocol. It is used in cases where a small code footprint is needed while bandwidth resources are limited. It is primarily used for machine-to-machine (M2M) communication or Internet of Things types of MQTT connections. MQTT 5 is the latest version of the MQTT protocol.
MQTT supports different levels of QoS and Last Will and Testament (LWT). It can use SSL/TLS to secure the communication channel between the client and the broker. MQTT also supports various authentication mechanisms (username/password, tokens) and can enforce authorization policies to control access to topics.
How does MQTT work?
Devices send MQTT messages to each other via:
- Topics: These are a way of categorizing the types of messages that are sent. If a sensor measures temperature, for example, the topic can be defined as “TEMP”, and the sensor sends messages out labelled as “TEMP”.
- Publishers: Devices can be configured to send out messages containing data. Using the temperature example, the sensor measuring temperature publishes this data.
- Subscribers: Devices or systems can be configured to receive only messages of a specific topic. They can also have subscriptions of multiple topics.
- Broker: This is the server that is at the center of MQTT communication. It transmits the published messages to servers or MQTT clients that have subscribed to specific topics. An example is the open-source message broker Mosquitto.
What is MQTT monitoring?
MQTT monitoring involves overseeing the performance, reliability, and security of MQTT-based messaging systems. This includes tracking the behavior of MQTT brokers, clients, and the overall message flow within the system. Effective monitoring ensures the health and efficiency of MQTT deployments, particularly in mission-critical applications such as IoT.
Use cases of MQTT monitoring include:
- Broker monitoring:
- Connection status: Track the status of client connections, including successful connections, disconnections, and reconnections.
- Message throughput: Monitor the rate of messages being published and delivered.
- Resource usage: Keep an eye on CPU, memory, and network usage of the broker to prevent overload and ensure scalability.
- Error rates: Monitor error logs and rates to detect issues like failed receiving messages or authentication errors.
- Client monitoring:
- Connection quality: Track connection stability, including connection duration and frequency of reconnections.
- Message latency: Measure the time it takes for messages to be delivered from publishers to subscribers.
- Message flow monitoring:
- Topic usage: Monitor which topics are being used, how frequently they are published to or subscribed to, and the size of the messages.
- QoS levels: Track the usage and performance of different Quality of Service levels.
- Retained messages: Monitor the state and delivery of retained messages.
Does PRTG support other industrial protocols?
Paessler PRTG is a comprehensive monitoring tool that supports a wide range of industrial standards and protocols to monitor various aspects of industrial IT infrastructure, including:
It also comes with preconfigured sensor types for manufacturers such as Rittal or Beckhoff.
What is a sensor in PRTG?
In PRTG, “sensors” are the basic monitoring elements. One sensor usually monitors one measured value in your network, for example the traffic of a switch port, the CPU load of a server, or the free space on a disk drive.
On average, you need about 5-10 sensors per device or one sensor per switch port.
PRTG: The multi-tool for sysadmins
Adapt PRTG individually and dynamically to your needs and rely on a strong API:- HTTP API: Access monitoring data and manipulate monitoring objects via HTTP requests
- Custom sensors: Create your own PRTG sensors for customized monitoring
- Custom notifications: Create your own notifications and send action triggers to external systems
- REST Custom sensor: Monitor almost everything that provides data in XML or JSON format
More than just a monitoring tool:
Reasons our customers love PRTG
Paessler PRTG is used by companies of all sizes. Sysadmins love PRTG because it makes their job a whole lot easier. Bandwidth, servers, virtual environments, websites, VoIP services – PRTG keeps an eye on your entire network. Everyone has different monitoring needs. That’s why we let you try PRTG for free.Still not convinced?
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Start monitoring using the MQTT protocol with PRTG and see how it can make your network more reliable and your job easier.
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