The Eclipse Foundation announced Tuesday that its Sparkplug specification for industrial IoT (IIoT) connectivity has been published as an ISO/IEC international standard, a move that should accelerate its adoption.
Sparkplug, which enables different industrial systems to seamlessly share data, is now known as ISO/IEC 20237. It passed through the ISO fast-track process for standards developed externally. The Eclipse Foundation will continue to maintain Sparkplug.
“The publication of Sparkplug as an international standard is significant, not just for the Sparkplug community, but for any organisation that needs to digitally transform their business by leveraging IIoT technologies,” said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation.
He said Sparkplug has seen tremendous growth as companies transition to IIoT platforms across industries. The new status as an ISO standard will likely accelerate adoption further.
Phil Wennblom, chair of the ISO committee that approved Sparkplug, congratulated Eclipse on the achievement and said he looks forward to future collaboration.
ISO standards like Sparkplug are considered global benchmarks that help ensure interoperability, quality, and safety. Becoming an ISO standard effectively validates the technology as an accepted ecosystem.
Along with the ISO approval, the Sparkplug Working Group launched a product certification program to ensure different implementations of the standard work well together.
Sparkplug is used to connect legacy industrial systems, sensors, and applications to IIoT infrastructure using the MQTT protocol. It allows companies to quickly deploy complex IIoT systems.
The Eclipse Foundation is a large open-source software foundation that created Sparkplug to help with the IIoT transition across industries like manufacturing, energy, and transportation. The standard has seen rapid growth recently as IIoT platforms become more prevalent.
(Image Credit: Eclipse Foundation under CC BY 4.0 license)
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