Retired 16 August 2023
Migrating from Google Cloud IoT Core
What happened
Google announced in August 2022 that Cloud IoT Core would be retired, and the service was shut down on 16 August 2023. At that point the Device Manager APIs stopped serving and devices could no longer connect to the MQTT and HTTP bridges.
IoT Core launched in public beta in 2017 and became generally available in early 2018, positioned against AWS IoT Core and Azure IoT Hub.
Teams affected at the time generally moved to another managed platform, to a self-hosted MQTT broker with Pub/Sub behind it, or to a partner offering.
What this means if you are affected
- This retirement is long past, so anyone still searching is usually maintaining a stopgap built in a hurry in 2023 — often a bare MQTT broker with no device management on top.
- The usual pain is not connectivity but everything around it: device registry, credentials, decoding, dashboards and alerting all had to be rebuilt by hand.
- It is worth checking whether your replacement still needs the operational attention it currently gets, or whether a managed platform would remove that.
- The lesson most teams drew was to keep the device-facing protocol standard, so the cloud side can be replaced without touching firmware.
How Google Cloud IoT Core concepts map to Qubitro
| Google Cloud IoT Core | Qubitro | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Device registry | Project | The container devices belong to. |
| Device | Device | — |
| MQTT bridge | Qubitro MQTT endpoint | Per-device credentials, MQTT 3.1.1 and 5. |
| HTTP bridge | Qubitro HTTP ingest | — |
| Pub/Sub fan-out | Rules, webhooks and integrations | — |
| Cloud Functions on telemetry | Functions | JavaScript against incoming data. |
| BigQuery / dashboards | Storage and Monitoring | Time-series storage with retention, plus built-in dashboards. |
The migration, step by step
- 1
Confirm what your devices actually speak
If firmware still publishes plain MQTT or HTTP, the move is a credential and endpoint change. If it was rewritten against a Google-specific SDK, expect firmware work.
- 2
Recreate devices in Qubitro
Create a project and add devices. Where hardware is in the template library, the decoder and a starter dashboard already exist.
- 3
Swap endpoint and credentials
Point devices at Qubitro's MQTT or HTTP endpoint with per-device credentials. Devices can publish to both destinations during cutover so you can verify before switching over.
- 4
Replace the fan-out
Whatever Pub/Sub used to feed — a database, an analytics job, an internal service — becomes a Qubitro rule, webhook or integration.
- 5
Retire the stopgap
Decommission the interim broker and any glue code once dashboards and alerts are verified in Qubitro.
Common questions
- When exactly did Google Cloud IoT Core shut down?
- 16 August 2023. Google announced the retirement in August 2022, giving roughly a year's notice. After that date the Device Manager APIs stopped serving and devices could no longer connect to the MQTT and HTTP bridges.
- Do I need to change device firmware to move to Qubitro?
- Usually not. If your devices publish standard MQTT or HTTP, moving is a matter of changing endpoint and credentials. Firmware written against a Google-specific SDK is the case that needs code changes.
- What replaces Pub/Sub?
- Qubitro rules and integrations. Instead of publishing to a topic and wiring subscribers, you configure a rule that forwards data to a webhook, an integration or a function when a condition is met.
Migrations are easier to judge than to argue about. Connect one device on the free tier and see how much of your setup comes across before committing to anything.