Internet of Things solutions

This section will aim to cover the following exam objective: describe the benefits and usage of Internet of Things (IoT) Hub, IoT Central, and Azure Sphere.

Before we look closer at the IoT solutions that are part of the exam objectives, we will create a knowledge foundation and baseline to build from. This also aims to build an understanding of the bigger picture of how the different IoT solutions are positioned and interrelated for both technical and business personas.

IoT is a technology solution that provides intelligent devices (things) equipped with sensors to collect and send data to a cloud platform for analysis and take action based on insights.

The three core elements of an IoT solution are collecting the data, processing the data, and taking action on the data. You need a set of connected technologies across these three areas, which are outlined as follows:

• Things: The physical things that have embedded sensors that, when connected to the internet, can send telemetry (values) data to a cloud platform for analysis and action.
• Insights: The results from analyzing the received data (values) from the things. These insights are produced by real-time stream analysis, machine learning, and other backend processes.
• Actions: The responses to the insights. These can be manual or automated. For example, the actions could be to change the device’s settings, update an inventory or metrics dashboard, trigger an intervention such as scheduling a site visit/appointment with a professional, sending a part, ordering an inventory item, and so on.

The following diagram visualizes these core IoT elements:

Figure 5.9 – Core IoT elements

IoT solutions have many use case scenarios across many industries. The following are the most common scenario categories:

• Remote monitoring: The foundation service for all IoT solutions; telemetry data is sent to the cloud for monitoring devices with embedded sensors.
• Predictive maintenance: This determines when maintenance should be done based on receiving values on the condition of in-service equipment from device sensors.
• Facilities management: This allows you to optimize energy consumption, control access, and the user experience.
• Connected manufacturing: Here, embedded IoT devices and sensors are used to manufacture production lines or similar.
• Fleet management: Here, location-aware sensors are fitted to monitor a fleet of vehicles, such as trucks, cars, forklifts, drones, ships, containers, planes, trains, and so on.

This section introduced the high-level concepts of IoT. In the next section, we will look at IoT solutions.