The authors of the text have created a hybrid architecture combining MQTT and Kafka with InfluxDB for IoT data processing. The architecture uses an MQTT broker as a bridge between devices and a Kafka cluster, while InfluxDB is used to store and process data. The MQTT proxy acts as a secret MQTT client that connects to the current broker, mapping payload to a Kafka topic. The authors have implemented a Docker-based setup with environment variables for configuration. They have also created a Flux task to aggregate and enrich data before transferring it back into a Kafka topic for further consumption. The architecture demonstrates a decoupled approach to data transformation without modifying other stages of the architecture.