Redis as a replacement for Modbus/TCP

Question

I'm currently using Redis in an IoT application to receive a stream of data from an acquisition board; all other communications between the PC and the board is based on Modbus/TPC protocol.

A colleague of mine has recently advanced the proposal to completely remove Modbus, and use Redis for all communications instead. Supposedly this would require a mixture of variables exchange and PUB/SUB signals.

While the idea is attractive, I was just wondering if someone has already done some research in this direction.

Answer 1

Modbus is a widely used protocol to communicate between industrial devices on one side and computers / gateways on the other side. The device is the server, the computer is the client. Sensor data is polled, changes are pushed.

Redis provides a protocol RESP https://redis.io/topics/protocol between REDIS clients and the Redis server. The devices would then be clients, and the computer the server.

Replacing modbus with RESP would thus invert the client/server relationship. While there are advantages (better typed data transfer) its uncommon the select a RESP in that area. MQTT or so would be more common.