Choose the best Azure IoT service for your application

 

Identify the product options

    IoT enables devices to gather and then relay information for data analysis. Smart devices are equipped with sensors that collect data. A few common sensors that measure attributes of the physical world include:

• Environmental sensors that capture temperature and humidity levels.
• Barcode, QR code, or optical character recognition (OCR) scanners.
• Geo-location and proximity sensors.
• Light, color, and infrared sensors.
• Sound and ultrasonic sensors.
• Motion and touch sensors.
• Accelerometer and tilt sensors.
• Smoke, gas, and alcohol sensors.
• Error sensors to detect when there's a problem with the device.
• Mechanical sensors that detect anomalies or deformations.
• Flow, level, and pressure sensors for measuring gasses and liquids.

    By using Azure IoT services, devices that are equipped with these kinds of sensors and that can connect to the internet could send their sensor readings to a specific endpoint in Azure via a message. The message's data is then collected and aggregated, and it can be converted into reports and alerts. Alternately, all devices could be updated with new firmware to fix issues or add new functionality by sending software updates from Azure IoT services to each device.

    Let's suppose your company manufactures and operates smart refrigerated vending machines. What kinds of information would you want to monitor? You might want to ensure that:

• Each machine is operating without any errors.
• The machines haven't been compromised.
• The machines' refrigeration systems are keeping their contents within a certain temperature range.
• You're notified when products reach a certain inventory level so you can restock the machines.

    If the hardware of your vending machines can collect and send this information in a standard message, the messages each machine sends can be received, stored, organized, and displayed by using Azure IoT services.

    The data that's collected from these devices could be combined with Azure AI services to help you predict:

• When machines need proactive maintenance.
• When inventories will need to be replenished and new product ordered from vendors.

Azure IoT Hub

    Azure IoT Hub is a managed service that's hosted in the cloud and that acts as a central message hub for bi-directional communication between your IoT application and the devices it manages. You can use Azure IoT Hub to build IoT solutions with reliable and secure communications between millions of IoT devices and a cloud-hosted solution back end. You can connect virtually any device to your IoT hub.

    The IoT Hub service supports communications both from the device to the cloud and from the cloud to the device. It also supports multiple messaging patterns, such as device-to-cloud telemetry, file upload from devices, and request-reply methods to control your devices from the cloud. After an IoT hub receives messages from a device, it can route that message to other Azure services.

    From a cloud-to-device perspective, IoT Hub allows for command and control. That is, you can have either manual or automated remote control of connected devices, so you can instruct the device to open valves, set target temperatures, restart stuck devices, and so on.

    IoT Hub monitoring helps you maintain the health of your solution by tracking events such as device creation, device failures, and device connections.

Azure IoT Central

    Azure IoT Central builds on top of IoT Hub by adding a dashboard that allows you to connect, monitor, and manage your IoT devices. The visual user interface (UI) makes it easy to quickly connect new devices and watch as they begin sending telemetry or error messages. You can watch the overall performance across all devices in aggregate, and you can set up alerts that send notifications when a specific device needs maintenance. Finally, you can push firmware updates to the device.

    To help you get up and running quickly, IoT Central provides starter templates for common scenarios across various industries, such as retail, energy, healthcare, and government. You then customize the design starter templates directly in the UI by choosing from existing themes or creating your own custom theme, setting the logo, and so on. With IoT Central, you can tailor the starter templates for the specific data that's sent from your devices, the reports you want to see, and the alerts you want to send.

    You can use the UI to control your devices remotely. This feature allows you to push a software update or modify a property of the device. You can adjust the desired temperature for one or all of your refrigerated vending machines from directly inside of IoT Central.

    A key part of IoT Central is the use of device templates. By using a device template, you can connect a device without any service-side coding. IoT Central uses the templates to construct the dashboards, alerts, and so on. Device developers still need to create code to run on the devices, and that code must match the device template specification.

Azure Sphere

Azure Sphere creates an end-to-end, highly secure IoT solution for customers that encompasses everything from the hardware and operating system on the device to the secure method of sending messages from the device to the message hub. Azure Sphere has built-in communication and security features for internet-connected devices.

Azure Sphere comes in three parts:

• The first part is the Azure Sphere micro-controller unit (MCU), which is responsible for processing the operating system and signals from attached sensors. The following image displays the Seeed Azure Sphere MT3620 Development Kit MCU, one of several different starter kits that are available for prototyping and developing Azure Sphere applications.
• The second part is a customized Linux operating system (OS) that handles communication with the security service and can run the vendor's software.
• The third part is Azure Sphere Security Service, also known as AS3. Its job is to make sure that the device has not been maliciously compromised. When the device attempts to connect to Azure, it first must authenticate itself, per device, which it does by using certificate-based authentication. If it authenticates successfully, AS3 checks to ensure that the device hasn't been tampered with. After it has established a secure channel of communication, AS3 pushes any OS or approved customer-developed software updates to the device.

    After the Azure Sphere system has validated the authenticity of the device and authenticated it, the device can interact with other Azure IoT services by sending telemetry and error information.

Analyze the decision criteria

    In this unit, we'll analyze the criteria that experts employ when they decide which IoT service to use for a given business need. Understanding the criteria can also help you better understand the nuanced differences between each product.

Is it critical to ensure that the device is not compromised?

    Not in every case. Manufacturers and customers would rather not have their devices to be maliciously compromised and used for nefarious purposes, however in some cases it's more critical to ensure the integrity than others. An example would be that of an ATM in comparison to a washing machine. When security is a critical consideration in your product's design, the best product option is Azure Sphere, which provides a comprehensive end-to-end solution for IoT devices.

    As we mentioned in the previous unit, Azure Sphere ensures a secure channel of communication between the device and Azure by controlling everything from the hardware to the operating system and the authentication process. This ensures that the integrity of the device is uncompromised. After a secure channel is established, messages can be received from the device securely, and messages or software updates can be sent to the device remotely.

Do I need a dashboard for reporting and management?

    Your next decision will be the level of services you require from your IoT solution. If you merely want to connect to your remote devices to receive telemetry and occasionally push updates, and you don't need any reporting capabilities, you might prefer to implement Azure IoT Hub by itself. Your programmers can still create a customized set of management tools and reports by using the IoT Hub RESTful API.

    However, if you want a pre-built customizable user interface with which you can view and control your devices remotely, you might prefer to start with IoT Central. With this solution, you can control a single device or all devices at once, and you can set up alerts for certain conditions, such as a device failure.

    IoT Central integrates with many different Azure products, including IoT Hub, to create a dashboard with reports and management features. The dashboard is based on starter templates for common industry and usage scenarios. You can use the dashboard that's generated by the starter template as is or customize it to suit your needs. You can have multiple dashboards and target them at a variety of users.

Use IoT Hub

    The Tailwind Traders senior leadership team has decided to partner with a leading appliance manufacturer to create an exclusive, high-end brand that promises a preemptive maintenance service agreement. This unique feature would differentiate Tailwind Traders appliances in a crowded, competitive market. The feature also makes the brand lucrative, because a yearly subscription would be required. To build a strong brand reputation, the appliances will send telemetry information to a centralized location, where the data can be analyzed and maintenance can be scheduled.

    The devices will not require remote control. They will merely be sending their telemetry data for analysis and pro-active maintenance.

    Because Tailwind Traders already has software in place for managing appliance maintenance requests, the company wants to integrate all functionality into this existing system.

Which service should you choose?

Let's apply the decision criteria from the previous unit.

    First, is it critical to ensure that the device or, in this case, each appliance, isn't compromised? It's preferable, but not critical, that the devices aren't compromised. The worst that could happen is that a hacker reads the current temperature of the customer's refrigerator or the number of loads of laundry the washing machine has completed.

    Even if the customer calls and reports strange behavior with their appliance, a technician could reset or replace the microcontroller. It might not warrant the extra expense or engineering resources that would be required to employ Azure Sphere.

    Second decision criterion: do I need a dashboard for reporting and management? In this case, no. Tailwind Traders wants to integrate the telemetry data and all other functionality into an existing maintenance request system. In this case, Azure IoT Central is not required.

So, given the responses to the decision criteria, Azure IoT Hub is the best choice in this scenario.

Why not use Azure IoT Central?

    Azure IoT Central provides a dashboard that allows companies to manage IoT devices individually and an aggregate, view reports, and set up error notifications via a GUI. But, in this scenario, Tailwind Traders wants to integrate the telemetry it collects and other analysis functionality into an existing software application. Furthermore, the company's appliances will be collecting data via sensors only and don't need the ability to update settings or software remotely. Therefore, the company doesn't need Azure IoT Central.

Why not use Azure Sphere?

    Azure Sphere provides a complete solution for scenarios where security is critical. In this scenario, security is preferred but not critical. The appliances can't be updated with new software remotely. The sensors merely report usage data. As a result, Azure Sphere isn't necessary.

Use IoT Central

    Tailwind Traders owns a fleet of delivery vehicles that transport products from warehouses to distribution centers, and from distribution centers to stores and homes. The company is looking for a complete logistics solution that takes data sent from an onboard vehicle computer and turns it into actionable information.

    Furthermore, shipments can be outfitted with sensors from a third-party vendor to collect and monitor ambient conditions. These sensors can collect information such as the temperature, humidity, tilt, shock, light, and the location of a shipment.

A few goals of this logistics system include:

• Shipment monitoring with real-time tracing and tracking.
• Shipment integrity with real-time ambient condition monitoring.
• Security from theft, loss, or damage of shipments.
• Geo-fencing, route optimization, fleet management, and vehicle analytics.
• Forecasting for predictable departure and arrival of shipments.

    The company would prefer a pre-built solution to collect the sensor and vehicle computer data, and provide a graphical user interface that displays reports about shipments and vehicles.

Which service should you choose?

    Here again, apply the decision criteria that you learned about earlier.

    First, is it critical to ensure that the device or, in this case, each appliance, isn't compromised? Ideally, each sensor and vehicle computer would be impervious to interference. However, security was not mentioned as a critical concern at this point. The vehicle computers and sensors are built by a third-party vendor and, unless Tailwind Traders wants to manufacture its own devices (which they don't), the company will be forced to use hardware that's already available.

    Second, does Tailwind Traders need a dashboard for reporting and management? Yes, a reporting and management dashboard is a requirement.

    Based on these responses to the decision criteria, Azure IoT Central is the best choice in this scenario. The Connected Logistics starter template provides an out-of-box dashboard that will satisfy many of these requirements. This dashboard is preconfigured to showcase the critical logistics device operations activity. Admittedly, the dashboard might need to be reconfigured to remove sea vessel gateways, but the truck gateway functionality would be almost exactly what Tailwind Traders needs.

Why not use IoT Hub?

    If Tailwind Traders uses IoT Central, the company would actually be using an IoT hub that's preconfigured for its specific needs by the Connected Logistics starter template. Otherwise, the company would need to do a lot of custom development to build its own cloud-based dashboards and management systems on top of Azure IoT Hub.

Why not use Azure Sphere?

    Azure Sphere provides a complete solution for scenarios where security is critical. In this scenario, security is ideal, but not a critical priority. Although Azure Sphere provides an end-to-end solution that includes hardware, Tailwind Traders will use hardware from a third-party vendor. So, in this scenario, Azure Sphere is not necessary.

Use Azure Sphere

    Tailwind Traders wants to implement a touchless point-of-sale solution for self-checkout. The self-checkout terminals should be, above all else, secure. Each terminal must be impervious to malicious code that could create fraudulent transactions, force the company to take the systems offline during a heavy shopping period, or send transactional data to a spying organization. The terminals should also report back vital information on the company's health and allow secure updates to its software remotely.

    After reviewing many possible solutions during a request for proposal process, Tailwind Traders decides that it needs features that vendors have yet to implement. Instead of using an existing solution, the company decides to work with a leading engineering firm that specializes in IoT solutions. This approach allows the company to build a uniquely secure terminal that gives it a retail platform to build on going forward.

    Although most of the company's focus is on the terminal itself, Tailwind Traders realizes that it wants a solution that can help it make sense of all the data that will be generated by these terminals across all of its retail stores. And it wants an easy way to push software updates to its terminals.

Which service should you choose?

Again, apply the decision criteria as you've been doing.

First, is it critical to ensure that the device or, in this case, each point-of-sale terminal, is not compromised? Absolutely. Device security is the primary requirement.

Next, does Tailwind Traders need a dashboard for reporting and management? Yes, the company requires a reporting and management dashboard.

So, given the responses to the decision criteria, the IoT engineering firm will build a platform on top of both Azure IoT Central and Azure Sphere. Even though no specific starter template is available in Azure IoT Central for this scenario, one can easily be adapted to accommodate the kinds of reports the company wants to see and the management operations it wants to perform.

Why not choose IoT Hub?

By using IoT Central, Tailwind Traders would actually be using Azure IoT Hub behind the scenes as well.