As the technological pendulum continues to swing towards decentralisation, Eclipse Zenoh stands at the forefront with its innovative features.
The year of 2023 was particularly significant for ZettaScale. It marked the introduction of several new features which have greatly enhanced performance, usability, and integration capabilities. These advancements not only streamline operations but also open up new possibilities for developers and businesses to leverage Zenoh’s powerful infrastructure.
So let’s have a look at our 10 top features released this year that are shaping the future of decentralised technology and data communication
1. WE IMPROVED PERFORMANCE METRICS
With the introduction of Zenoh Bahamut, we reduced the latency to as little as 7 µs. Our users witnessed a substantial increase in message throughput, with close to 5 million messages per second for 8-byte payloads and over 60 Gb/s for 8 Kb payloads.
This ensured that Zenoh remained one of the fastest data management solutions available.
2. We created a new data flow programming model: Zenoh-Flow
We added Zenoh-Flow to our Zenoh family!
Our new protocol provides a data flow programming model that simplifies the development of complex data processing pipelines, allows the creation of data flows that are easy to understand, maintain, and scale. This way, developers could focus on the logic of their applications without worrying about the underlying data management complexities.
3. We improved connectivity by integrating ROS 2 and MQTT
ROS 2 integration
Font: Zenoh routers used in route DDS traffic
ROS is a set of software libraries and tools that allow the building of robotic applications. ROS 2 relies mostly on the O.M.G. DDS as a middleware for communications.
While a Zenoh bridge for DDS already exists and helps a lot of robotic use cases to overcome some wireless connectivity, bandwidth and integration issues, using a bridge dedicated to ROS2 brings a better integration of the ROS graph, ROS toolings (ros2, rviz2…). It also brings easier integration with Zenoh native applications, and more compact exchanges of discovery information between bridges.
Do you want to know how to apply our ROS 2 Zenoh plug-in in your ecosystem? Julien Enoch (our Senior Solution Architect) explains it here in one of our webinars.
MQTT integration
Font: Zenoh integration on MQTT broker
We added Zenoh’s MQTT plugin in 2023!
This strategic integration allows Zenoh to act as an MQTT broker, accepting connections from MQTT clients (V3 and V5) and translating the MQTT pub/sub into a Zenoh pub/sub. This allows a close integration of any MQTT system with Zenoh, but also brings to MQTT systems the benefits of a Zenoh routing infrastructure.
For example, it can route messages from the device through the edge to the cloud using NAT traversal, bridge two separate instances of MQTT across the internet with NAT traversal, pub-sub to MQTT via Zenoh RES API, and enable MQTT/ROS 2 (robots) communication.
Additionally, it can keep all or selected MQTT publications in RocksDB, InfluxDB, or a file system, or perform record and replay of MQTT data using InfluxDB storage.
4. We added extra support for ultra-low latency communication
Although Zenoh is already capable of delivering very low latency in every situation and context, especially in brokers such as MQTT, DDS or Kafka, we believed that we could do even better!
We introduced the support for ultra-low latency communication to address those applications that care about every single microsecond. For example, applications communicating over shared memory will greatly benefit from it and it will also be required for a new Zenoh’s high-performance SHM API we are cooking up.
5. We added support with Let’s Encrypt
LetsEncrypt is a free, automated, and open certificate authority (part of the WebPKI) that provides digital certificates for enabling HTTPS (SSL/TLS) encryption on websites.
In 2023, we added the support of LetsEncrypt when using Zenoh with TLS as the communication transport, unleashing an easy way to secure Zenoh communications. Read our comprehensive guide on how to use LetsEncrypt
6. We enhanced C++ API and simplified integration in Zenoh-pico
We added the C++ API landing on zenoh-pico. This means that from now on, you can write your Zenoh C++ application and run it on any embedded platform supported by zenoh-pico!
Moreover, we finally provided full coverage of the Zenoh stable API, including shared memory support. The build for zenoh C/C++ projects was also made simpler and more flexible. Now zenoh-c, zenoh-pico and zenoh-cpp can be directly included into the parent CMake project without previous installation.
7. Zenoh Kotlin API: JVM Integration and Android Support
We also introduced Zenoh to the world of Kotlin and vice versa. The Zenoh Kotlin API targets the JVM environment and essentially opens the use of Zenoh to all JVM-based programming languages.
In this alpha version, you’ll find most of Zenoh’s features. You’ll be able to publish, subscribe and query data. We are now working on platform-independent packaging and Android support.
8. We introduced the liveness support
In 2022, we launched the innovative liveliness feature, enabling Zenoh applications to assert and monitor the liveliness of any other Zenoh application within the network.
Every Zenoh application can declare liveliness tokens linked to specific key expressions. Liveliness tokens will be seen as alive by other Zenoh applications as long as the Zenoh application that declared it is alive. This functionality allows Zenoh applications to query and subscribe to liveliness changes, tracking the appearance and disappearance of these tokens.
9. We added a transparent compression support
We also added a transparent compression feature in 2023.
The compression is performed hop to hop in the network, meaning that messages are compressed by the sending node and decompressed by the receiving node (a node being either a router, a client or a peer).
This is particularly useful when communication happens on networks with limited bandwidth, like WiFi.
10. We integrated S3 Storage Backend
Our users requested the integration of S3 storage backend, and we made it happen.
This feature allowed Zenoh to interface with Amazon S3 and MinIO, providing users with the ability to leverage cloud storage capabilities within the Zenoh ecosystem. The S3 backend can be configured for both Amazon S3 and MinIO, offering flexibility and scalability for data at rest.
Our team wrote a blog post with more details about the backend systems and configuration.
Conclusion
In 2023, our team’s dedication to continuous improvement was an important part in enhancing data communication and scalability. Whether it’s for robotics, embedded systems, or cloud platforms, Zenoh’s features are designed to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Don’t take our word for it. Test it yourself!
Zenoh is open-source and you can find all the Zenoh documentation on GitHub. If you have questions, join Zenoh’s Discord channel to talk with our engineers.