Abstract

This paper presents an experimental evaluation of communication technologies for real-time Machine-to-Machine (M2M) data streaming systems based on an integrated Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) decision model. Four communication technologies - HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, RabbitMQ, and Apache Kafka - were evaluated under controlled LAN conditions using a sustained stress-test workload of up to 50,000 generated messages per second. The evaluation considered six criteria: average latency, 99thpercentile latency, message loss, ordering consistency, transaction success, and throughput. The results indicate that Apache Kafka achieves the highest overall suitability with a TOPSIS closeness coefficient of Ci = 0.946, followed by RabbitMQ (Ci = 0.777), HTTP/2 (Ci = 0.607), and HTTP/1.1 (Ci = 0.000). The findings demonstrate that multi-criteria decision models provide a practical framework for objective communication technology selection in real-time M2M data streaming systems by simultaneously considering latency, reliability, throughput, and domain-specific operational requirements.

References

• Wael Al-Manasrah et al. Message-oriented middleware systems: Technology overview. arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.17774, 2026.
• Philippe Dobbelaere and Kyumars Sheykh Esmaili. Kafka versus rabbitmq: A comparative study of two industry reference publish/subscribe implementations. In Proceedings of the 11th ACM International Conference on Distributed and Event- Based Systems, pages 227–238, 2017.
• Ching-Lai Hwang and Kwangsun Yoon. Multiple Attribute Decision Making: Methods and Applications – A State-of-the-Art Survey. Springer, Berlin, 2012.
• Oleg Iliev. Methodology for selecting communication protocols in m2m systems. Serdica Journal of Computing, 19(1):1– 15, 2025.
• Oleg Iliev. Multi-criteria methodology for selecting communication protocols in m2m environments. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, 17(2), 2026.
• Oleg Iliev. Systematic review and taxonomy of communication protocol selection methodologies in m2m and iot systems. International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research, 2026.
• Thomas L. Saaty, Kirti Peniwati, and Jen S. Shang. The analytic hierarchy process and human resource allocation: Half the story. Mathematical and Computer Modelling, 46(7–8):1041– 1053, 2007.
• Martin Thomson and Mark Benfield. Hypertext transfer protocol version 2 (http/2). RFC 7540, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), 2015.
• Sridhar Raj Sankara Vadivel, V. Karthikeyan, and K. Gopalakrishnan. Introduction to the internet of things (iot). In Internet of Things Security, pages 3–31. Elsevier, 2026.