InfluxDB Cloud has introduced Native Collectors, a new feature that allows users to spin up subscribers for well-known industry protocols, enabling the connection, ingestion, and parsing of data into InfluxDB. The first native protocol released is MQTT, and InfluxDB Cloud will be connecting two popular IoT-based platforms, Kepware and The Things Network, using Native Collectors. The plan is to create a table outlining the features that will be covered in a two-part series, including connecting an edge platform to the cloud, sending line protocol within an MQTT payload, authentication, JSON payload parsing, and more. In this first part of the series, Kepware's industrial example will be explored, where a sample Kepware server project is used to demonstrate how to configure Kepware to talk to HiveMQ's public MQTT broker, update the MQTT payload format to support line protocol, and set up an MQTT ingester in InfluxDB Cloud. The second part of the series will cover connecting The Things Network using Native Collectors, with community feedback and ideas for new protocol types welcome.