This document discusses IoT solutions using Azure IoT services. It describes that IoT solutions involve more than just devices, and include device management, bidirectional device integration, data collection, storage, analysis, and extracting intelligence from data. The best architecture depends on requirements like latency, security, scalability and cost. It then lists many Azure services that can be used to build IoT solutions, including IoT Hub, Digital Twins, IoT Edge, and analytics, storage, and security services. It provides more details on how IoT Hub and Device Provisioning Service handle device identity and communication, and how Digital Twins creates digital representations of physical entities.
2. IoT solutions
IoT is not only about devices/hardware
IoT solutions:
Device Management (provisioning, security, updates, configurations, etc)
Bidirectional device integration (D2C, C2D)
Data collection
Data controls, transformation, projections, pre-processing/processing,
enrichment, mappings
Storage (multi-format and multi-system)
Data usage, analysis, AI, integration/exposition, monetization, etc
Intelligence or value extraction
3. Architectures
No generic perfect answer
Depend always on requirements:
Functional
Technical
Business
Key factors (no specific order):
Latency
Flows (bidirectional, long/short, reactive, etc)
Value (data, intelligence, processing, AI, etc)
Security
Scalability
Reliability
Cost
Business model(s)
Evolutivity
Technical debt level
6. IoT Solutions with Azure IoT
Azure IoT Hub
Azure IoT Hub DPS
Azure Device Update for IoT
Hub
Azure Digital Twins
Azure IoT Central
Azure Plug and Play
Azure Sphere
Azure IoT Edge
AKS Essentials for Edge
K3S
E4K
Azure Defender for IoT
Azure Event Hub
Azure Event Grid
Azure Service Bus Topic
Azure Service Bus
Queue
Azure Stream Analytics
Azure Functions
Azure App Services
Azure Kubernetes
Services
Azure Container
Application
Azure API Management
Azure Data Explorer
Azure SQL Database Family
(including MySQL and
PostgreSQL)
Azure Cosmos DB (including
PostgreSQL)
Azure Databricks
Azure Synapse
Azure Storage
Azure Machine Learning
Azure OpenAI
Azure Cognitive Services
Azure Monitor
Azure Application Insights
Azure Log Analytics
Azure Advisor
Azure Arc
Azure App Configuration
Azure Key Vault
Azure Defender for IoT
Azure Defender for API
Azure Defender
Azure Sentinel
Azure Vnet
Azure Private Endpoints / Service
Endpoints
Azure Frontdoor
Azure Application Gateway
Azure Firewall
Azure Private DNS
Azure Sentinel
7. DPS and IoT Hub
DPS
Provisioning / reprovisioning
Configurations by default
Security (SAS, X509 | unique, group enrollments)
IoT Hub
Device identity (or module)
D2C/C2D (ou M2C/C2M) with Device Twin (tags, desired properties and
reported properties), messages and commands
Routes / Endpoints + Enrichments
Updates
Jobs
8. Digital Twins
Digital representation of a logic or physical entity.
Generic concept.
Not a Device Twin. Common mistake.
Azure Digital Twins relies on DTDL, which describes:
Properties
Telemetries
Commands
Relations
Differenciator key points of ADT:
Search engine (graph)
Routes and endpoints