The Internet of Things (IoT) enables the connection of devices of all sorts and describes how they communicate data with each other and with servers, and XMPP is at the forefront of this growing area. With years of experience in security and scalability, as well as the existence of a plethora of servers and related software, XMPP provides a solid and open foundation for the infrastructure of IoT. There are several XEPs to support XMPP's role in IoT, and there is a specific community, called XMPP-IoT, which focuses on this initiative (see http://www.xmpp-iot.org).

IoT communications are commonly thought of as Device-To-Device (D2D) and Device-To-Server (D2S); it is useful to keep these different levels of communication in mind as you explore IoT and notice the range of protocols being developed to support these use cases. XMPP is preferred in the D2S space; the D2D space often involves protocols that are a bit closer to the wire and which, perhaps, do not rely...