Seamless Data Interoperability with agrirouter 2.0
In smart agriculture, data is a critical resource for optimizing operations and meeting sustainability goals. DKE-Data, a European agricultural consortium founded by ten leading agricultural technology companies, is at the forefront of enabling this transformation. Through its non-profit platform, agrirouter, DKE-Data facilitates seamless data exchange between farm machinery and software systems, empowering farmers, contractors, and consultants to work with their software tools and machines of choice.
This open, interoperable approach eliminates compatibility barriers, allowing stakeholders to focus on innovation and productivity. However, as DKE-Data’s user base grew and data demands surged, their initial platform, agrirouter 1.0, struggled to keep pace. With over 100 partners in its network and thousands of farmers relying on its services, DKE-Data recognized the need for a more scalable and reliable solution and partnered with Reply, an IoT solutions leader, and HiveMQ, a robust MQTT platform provider, to deliver agrirouter 2.0—a robust and future-ready platform.
HiveMQ stood out for its ability to handle large volumes of data while maintaining stability.
Scaling Agricultural Data Exchange
DKE-Data’s original agrirouter 1.0 platform was plagued by reliability issues, inflexible architecture, and scalability constraints. “The SAP-based system would frequently experience hours-long delays in message delivery,” explained Oliver Rahner, Architect at DKE-Data. “During peak seasons, like harvest, it simply couldn’t handle the traffic. This made real-time applications like logistics and telemetry-data exchange impossible.”
The platform’s rigidity was another significant limitation. Even minor updates required up to a year to implement, leaving business partners frustrated and hesitant to invest further. “We lost trust with many partners because we couldn’t deliver what they needed in a reasonable time,” added Johannes Sonnen, Managing Director at DKE-Data. “The last six months with the old architecture were especially challenging—latency was measured in hours, and the system would break down for days.”
These challenges led to significant disruptions in critical use cases, such as real-time telemetry for harvesting and logistics coordination. Business partners, including major equipment manufacturers and software providers, began pausing integrations, awaiting a more reliable solution. “Our partners were frustrated because the system simply couldn’t keep up - the trust deficit impacted our ability to expand,” Johannes noted. “We needed a platform that could rebuild confidence and support the growing demands of the industry.”
Rebuilding Trust with agrirouter 2.0
DKE-Data partnered with Reply to rebuild their platform from the ground up using a greenfield approach. agrirouter 2.0 prioritized backward compatibility while addressing the shortcomings of its predecessor to ensure that farmers could continue using their existing devices and software solutions without reconfiguration. Reply introduced a redesigned backend with a microservices architecture running on Kubernetes in AWS while retaining the existing API to minimize disruption. “We opted for a greenfield approach while maintaining the same interface,” explained Peter de Lange, Business Unit Manager at Reply. “This allowed farmers to continue their operations without interruption.”
At the heart of agrirouter 2.0 is HiveMQ, selected as the backbone for real-time messaging due to its proven scalability and reliability. HiveMQ’s ability to handle large volumes of telemetry and operational data at scale was essential to ensuring the platform’s performance and stability. “HiveMQ stood out for its ability to handle large volumes of data while maintaining stability. That was critical for us,” said Oliver.
The decision to choose HiveMQ followed a thorough evaluation of multiple brokers. HiveMQ’s extensibility and Java-based architecture offered significant advantages, particularly for Reply, enabling seamless customization and future scalability. Beyond technical capabilities, as a leader in the MQTT ecosystem, HiveMQ’s commitment to advancing industry standards resonated with DKE-Data’s mission to drive interoperability in agriculture. “Their contribution to the MQTT specification and ongoing innovation matched our goals of being part of boards and defining standards in our own field. It was a natural fit,” Oliver explained.
With HiveMQ at the core of agrirouter 2.0 and Reply playing a crucial role in ensuring the system’s successful development and integration, DKE-Data is confident they have built a platform capable of meeting both current demands and future challenges.
Seamless Transition and Outstanding Performance
The migration to agrirouter 2.0 was executed seamlessly, transferring all user accounts, endpoints, and settings without any data loss. “We took a bold approach, performing a hard cut migration,” said Oliver. “We announced 10 hours of downtime for the switch, but we were back online in just four hours. It was seamless.” HiveMQ’s high availability and support for MQTT 3.1 ensured compatibility with existing devices while enabling a robust foundation for future growth.
The revamped agrirouter 2.0 platform went live at the end of August, just in time for the forage harvest season, and in its first month processed over 7.4 million telemetry messages, more than doubling the 3.5 million messages handled during the same period in 2023. “For the first time, we reached an SLA of 100% during October and November in harvest season,” said Johannes. “This stability has been a game-changer for our partners and customers. Fixing issues is now much faster and easier since DKE-Data is now the owner of the source code, whereas it was owned by SAP in our previous solution.”
Business partners who had paused integrations under agrirouter 1.0 began returning. “Two major players resumed their implementations,” Johannes shared. “We’re now welcoming approximately 100-150 new users each month to our existing pool of 5,500 users.”
The platform’s real-time capabilities allow contractors to generate accurate invoices from machine data, building trust with customers. Powered by telemetry and GPS, agrirouter 2.0 helps farmers optimize resources, increase yields, and simplify operations. By combining advanced technology with user-centric design, it delivers a connected ecosystem that streamlines data exchange and supports smarter decision-making.
The new platform also gives DKE-Data the opportunity to bring agrirouter into the livestock farming sector due to the high availability of the system. Farmers can now exchange data along their entire value chain, for example connecting feed mixer wagons and feed weighing silos.
“The new agrirouter is about more than just data exchange—it’s about laying the foundation for the operation of Smart Farming technologies,” said Johannes. “Our collaboration with Reply and HiveMQ has given us a platform that supports innovation, growth, and long-term success for everyone in the agricultural value chain.“
