Adopting an IoT solution is not easy for a customer. Azure IoT Hub is great, powerful, but challenging to adopt. Why not evaluate Azure IoT Central as a starting point? As it is implemented on IoT Hub and all Azure IoT family of services, it can be a good starting point for a long term adoption to preserve the most of the initial effort. And then there is also IoT Plug and Play that give to all Azure IoT family the functional structure to be a great enterprise-grade solution.

1. Marco Parenzan

2. Solution Sales Specialist in Insight for Digital Innovation
Microsoft Azure MVP
Community Lead 1nn0va // Pordenone
1nn0va After Hour
https://bit.ly/1nn0va-video
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcoparenzan/
Marco Parenzan

4. Lot of great services
• Digital Twins
• Device Provisioning Services
• Time Series Insights
• Azure Data Explorer
• ...
Azure IoT Hub on Azure
Stack Hub
Lot of improvements in
the near future (sorry,
NdA for now!)
My considerations

5. Power BI
PowerApps Web Apps
Mobile Apps
Manage
View and manage solutions
Azure Sphere
Secured MCU Secured OS Cloud Security
Business Integration
Connect to business apps & services
Office 365
Dynamics 365
Edge Modules:
• Protocol Adaptation
• Functions
• Stream Analytics
• Machine Learning
• AI
Azure
IoT Edge
• Integrated view for CISO & SecOps personas to review enterprise security posture, including IoT solutions.
• Holistic view of IoT solution security posture for DevOps and IoT solution managers to review and manage day to day security status
Azure Security
Center for IoT
3rd Party applications
Azure IoT Device SDK
3rd Party Industry specific sensors & devices
(RTOS, Linux, Windows, Android, iOS)
IoT Hub
Container
Registry
Kubernetes
Service
Compute
(VMs)
Content
Delivery
Network
Data
Explorer
Front Door
Resource
Manager
(ARM)
Storage
Domain
Name
System
Microsoft
Flow
Key Vault
Service Bus
Applicatio
n Insights
Functions
SQL Azure
Cosmos DB
Web Apps
Azure Stream
Analytics
Event Hub
Device
Provisioning
Service Time Series
Insights
Maps
Your options for building IoT solutions

6. • Building globally secure, scalable and
reliable IoT solutions is incredibly complex.
At least 30% of all companies do not move
beyond proof of concept, due to complexity,
high costs, lack of staff, and concerns around
security.
• Designing successful IoT systems from the
ground up can require selecting, configuring
and managing dozens of services
• There is a significant skills gap around IoT,
which requires expertise across IT, OT an,
Security, and other services.
• The customer looks only on the device and
the field…
BUT…the reality of IoT is…

7. Power BI
PowerApps Web Apps
Mobile Apps
Manage
View and manage solutions
Azure Sphere
Secured MCU Secured OS Cloud Security
Business Integration
Connect to business apps & services
Office 365
Dynamics 365
Edge Modules:
• Protocol Adaptation
• Functions
• Stream Analytics
• Machine Learning
• AI
Azure
IoT Edge
• Integrated view for CISO & SecOps personas to review enterprise security posture, including IoT solutions.
• Holistic view of IoT solution security posture for DevOps and IoT solution managers to review and manage day to day security status
Azure Security
Center for IoT
3rd Party applications
Azure IoT Device SDK
3rd Party Industry specific sensors & devices
(RTOS, Linux, Windows, Android, iOS)
IoT Hub
Container
Registry
Kubernetes
Service
Compute
(VMs)
Content
Delivery
Network
Data
Explorer
Front Door
Resource
Manager
(ARM)
Storage
Domain
Name
System
Microsoft
Flow
Key Vault
Service Bus
Applicatio
n Insights
Functions
SQL Azure
Cosmos DB
Web Apps
Azure Stream
Analytics
Event Hub
Device
Provisioning
Service Time Series
Insights
Maps
But IoT adoption remains very challenging
Your options for building IoT solutions
Simplify production-ready IoT solution development
• Simplify setup, reduce management burden, operational
costs, and overhead of a typical IoT project.
• Bring solutions to market faster, while staying focused
on your customers
Azure IoT Central
Build with Azure IoT Central, our IoT App
Platform
 Highly secure
 Enterprise-grade
 Predictable pricing
 Industry-focused

9. • Carbon Emission
Reduction
• Grid assets
management
• Smart utility carbon
accounting
• EV Smart Charging
Energy
• Inventory
Management
• Store Analytics
• Digital Distribution
Center
• Connected logistics
Retail
• Smart
Equipment
• Precision
Farming
• Connected Cows
Agriculture
• Inventory Management
for Medical Supplies
• Remote patient
monitoring
• Cold Chain supply
tracking
• Smart hospital building
Healthcare
• Space Management &
Optimization
• Connected spaces
• Energy management &
building operations
• Occupant experience
and productivity
Smart
Buildings
• Smart Lighting
• Smart water
• Smart parking
• Smart Waste
• Air quality monitoring
Smart City
IoT Central can help you quickly innovate and build IoT
applications for your industry

10. Standard Tier 0 Standard Tier 1 Standard Tier 2
Price per device €0,07 al mese €0,34 al mese €0,59 al mese
Monthly device message allocation* 400 messages 5,000 messages 30,000 messages
Included free quantity per IoT Central
application
2 free devices
(800 included messages)
2 free devices
(10,000 included messages)
2 free devices
(60,000 included messages)
Use case For devices sending a few messages
per hour
For devices sending a few messages
per hour
For devices sending a message every
few minutes
Overage pricing per 1K messages1 €0.060 per 1K messages €0.013 per 1K messages €0.013 per 1K messages
*Total message allocation is shared across all devices in an IoT Central application
Pricing Model

11. IoT Central APIs
To build a solution with IoT Central app platform, we need to provide a programmatic way
for solution builders to access IoT Central. These are the categories of API capabilities we
need to enable.
I can build a solution that
can create new IoT Central
apps, discover apps a
user has access to, get
metadata about an app.
The solution can also
manage users with access
to applications.
I can build a solution that
can describe device
capabilities and import
that into IoT Central.
The solution can also get
details about the
capabilities of existing
devices.
I can build a solution that
can onboard and connect
new devices at scale.
I can build a solution that
can be used to control and
operate devices at scale.
The solution can also be
used manage device
lifecycle: manage which
devices can send data,
devices that are blocked,
etc.
I can build a solution that
uses telemetry data.
The solution can also
configure rules to notify
me when devices have
problems, and configure
data export to send data to
my own workflow.
App Management Device Modelling Device Onboarding Device Management Data and Insights

12. Implement with deployment in mind with DPS
device1
Global.azure-devices-provisioning.net
ID scope: xyz
RegistrationID: rai212
Secret: <X.509 cert>
DPS
DPS
ID scope: xyz
Name: contosoDPS
DPS
ID scope: abc
Name: relecloudDPS
Mapping DB
 DPS name
ID scope
+
RegID
ID scope: xyz
RegistrationID: rai212
DPS name: contosoDPS
device2
ID scope: abc
RegistrationID: fkb674
Secret: <X.509 cert>
ID scope: abc
RegistrationID: fkb674
DPS name: relecloudDPS

13. “Build with” patterns (from Industry Application
Templates)

14. Common Architectures
Below are common patterns for utilizing IoT Central for device management. You can also refer to architectures of the industry
application templates to learn how IoT Central is used for various industry solutions.
Telemetry from devices or
sensors is sent to a gateway
device or directly to IoT Central
Data is sent, aggregated and
analyzed in IoT Central
Data is routed to other Azure services for manipulation – storage,
reformatting, integration to business workflows and applications, etc.
Azure services like ASA or Azure Functions can be used to reformat data
streams and send them to storage accounts
Logic apps can be used to power business applications

15. • Deploy an Industry app template or a Custom template: Get started by building a custom IoT Central application. To explore possibilities,
consider examining an Industry application template for common IoT scenarios. Deploy a new IoT Central application and customize it to
your specific requirements. Get started here.
• Create a device template for the device types connecting to your application. Device templates are blueprints that specify characteristics
and behaviors of devices, and includes a device capability model, cloud properties that aren’t stored on the device, and customizations
or forms.
• Design the device template in IoT Central and implement its device capability model in your device code
• Import a device capability model from the Azure Certified for IoT Device Catalog and then add cloud properties, customizations and dashboards as
needed
• Create a device capability model using Visual Studio code, implement your device code from the model and connect your device to IoT Central or
manually import the device capability into your IoT Central application.
• *Device developers interested in submitting IoT hardware products for certification can publish a certified device in the Certified for IoT device catalog. To
learn how, read our documentation section, "Certify an IoT Plug and Play device".
• Customize the IoT Central UI for operators that will be leveraging the application. Customizations include defining the layout of
properties and settings on device templates, configuring custom dashboards to help operators discover insights and resolve issues
faster and configuring custom analytics from connected devices
Getting started building on IoT Central
• Connect your devices:
• IoT Plug and Play enables IoT Central to integrate devices without writing any embedded device code
• Leverage Microsoft’s open source Azure IoT SDKs to create your device code to create secure connections, send telemetry, report status and
receive configuration updates.
• Connect Azure IoT Edge devices to run cloud intelligence and run custom logic directly on IoT devices managed by IoT Central
• Manage your IoT devices: Leverage your IoT Central application to monitor your connected devices, troubleshoot and resolve device issues
and provision new devices.

17. • You can group these elements in interfaces to reuse
across models to make collaboration easier and to speed
up development.
• To make IoT Plug and Play work with Azure Digital Twins,
you define models and interfaces using the Digital Twins
Definition Language (DTDL). IoT Plug and Play and the
DTDL are open to the community, and Microsoft
welcomes collaboration with customers, partners, and the
industry. Both are based on open W3C standards such as
JSON-LD and RDF, which enables easier adoption across
services and tooling.
• There's no extra cost for using IoT Plug and Play and
DTDL. Standard rates for Azure IoT Hub and other Azure
services remain the same.
• IoT Plug and Play enables solution builders to integrate
smart devices with their solutions without any manual
configuration. At the core of IoT Plug and Play, is a
device model that a device uses to advertise its
capabilities to an IoT Plug and Play-enabled application.
This model is structured as a set of elements that
define:
• Properties that represent the read-only or writable state of
a device or other entity. For example, a device serial
number may be a read-only property and a target
temperature on a thermostat may be a writable property.
• Telemetry that's the data emitted by a device, whether the
data is a regular stream of sensor readings, an occasional
error, or an information message.
• Commands that describe a function or operation that can
be done on a device. For example, a command could
reboot a gateway or take a picture using a remote camera.
What is IoT Plug and Play?

18. • As a device builder, you can develop an IoT hardware product that supports IoT Plug and Play.
The process includes three key steps:
1. Define the device model. You author a set of JSON files that define your device's capabilities
using the DTDL. A model describes a complete entity such as a physical product, and defines
the set of interfaces implemented by that entity. Interfaces are shared contracts that uniquely
identify the telemetry, properties, and commands supported by a device. Interfaces can be
reused across different models.
2. Author device software or firmware in a way that their telemetry, properties, and commands
follow the IoT Plug and Play conventions. If you are connecting existing sensors attached to a
Windows or Linux gateway, the IoT Plug and Play bridge can simplify this step.
3. The device announces the model ID as part of the MQTT connection. The Azure IoT SDK
includes new constructs to provide the model ID at connection time.
Develop an IoT device application
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/iot-pnp/concepts-modeling-guide

19. • The model repository is a store for model and interface definitions. You define
models and interfaces using the Digital Twins Definition Language (DTDL).
• The web UI lets you manage the models and interfaces.
• The model repository has built-in role-based access controls that let you limit
access to interface definitions.
Models

23. • Very Very interesting
• Very Very interesting pricing model
• You adopt the Azure IoT full stack
• You preserve everything when you decide to have more control over
infrastructure
• Argh! Infrastructure...with PaaS!
• Who knows?
Conclusions

24. Marco Parenzan