How IoT devices connect to servers

Question

I am working on IoT project, and I should keep the embedded device to be connected with a web-service. So, which is better, requesting the webservice every 1 or 2 seconds, or opening a socket with the server to guarantee the real time operations.

Taking into Consideration that working with sockets, may require me to write a lot of bunches of codes, as there's no frameworks for socket over ARM for example.

Thanks

Answer 1

My team and I are currently working on an IOT platform, here are my suggestions:

1. If your product only report data or status periodically, using a web service to receive the data will work fine, and it's very easy to implement.
2. If you need to send realtime operations from server to your device, using a long tcp connection is a better choice. There are some good protocol to help you implement this, like MQTT.
3. For the second case above, requesting a web service to receive realtime operations will work, but it's definitely not a good idea. It will increase your server's load and your device's energy consumption.

After all, you need to make your choice on your product's requirements.

Answer 2

You can use MQTT protocol, its library is available for embedded c as well as for arduino. Also you can choose, Rest/Coap with nodejs as the request will be waiting until node will give response In this both scenario, real time communication can be approached without any socket and refreshing time.