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Azure IoT Edge

Score8 out of 10

12 Reviews and Ratings

What is Azure IoT Edge?

Azure IoT Edge is a fully managed service built on Azure IoT Hub. Users can deploy cloud workloads—artificial intelligence, Azure and third-party services, or business logic—to run on Internet of Things (IoT) edge devices via standard containers. The vendor states that by moving certain workloads to the edge of the network, devices spend less time communicating with the cloud, react more quickly to local changes, and operate reliably even in extended offline periods.

Categories & Use Cases

Top Performing Features

  • IoT Data Management

    Support for ingesting edge data and storing it to enterprise platforms, providing data accessibility, and managing data flows.

    Category average: 8.4

  • IoT Device Management

    Software for provisioning configuring, troubleshooting and managing IoT devices and gateways remotely.

    Category average: 8.5

  • Device Security

    Security to prevent connected devices from being hacked or compromised.

    Category average: 8.3

Areas for Improvement

  • IoT Analytics

    Rich analytics to transform large quantities of sensor data into actionable insights.

    Category average: 7.8

  • IoT Integration

    Software integration and APIs to support business processes and applications.

    Category average: 8

Microsoft Azure IoT Edge: From Cloud to Edge for Real Time Processing.

Pros

  • It works even if there is no internet at client location. It will record all the generated data and only send them to cloud storage when there is internet connection.
  • It allows you to bring cloud functionality down to Edge location in the form of docker container.
  • It also supports two way communication from device to cloud and vice-versa.

Cons

  • We had some trouble such as latency issues [and] connectivity while using Azure blob storage as an Edge Module on Azure IoT Edge runtime, so they should look into it.
  • We were stuck while defining the routes for different Edge Modules on Azure IoT Edge, so they should simplify it and improve the related documentation section as well.

Return on Investment

  • ROI was high, as we were able to impress our clients with POC of Microsoft Azure IoT Edge with our IoT based ERP product.
  • We were able to perform our POC for almost free, as there no charges for Azure IoT Edge, only minimal charges for storage.

Alternatives Considered

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Docker and Microsoft Azure IoT Hub

Other Software Used

Kubernetes, Docker, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Microsoft Azure IoT Edge: A Complete Suite for Edge Computing and Real-time Analytics

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Data needs to gather from devices and needs to be processed before pushing it to the Microsoft Azure IoT Edge hub. Also, Device servers are present in network but it doesn't have access of internet for the security purpose. So to solve this issue Microsoft Azure IoT Edge is used, Microsoft Azure IoT Edge communicates with the server using MQTT protocol, customize module is used to process the data, and then it pushes to the IoT hub.

Pros

  • secure communication through proxy
  • dockerize module can be pushed from Microsoft Azure IoT Edge to achieve business needs
  • edge computing and edge analytics can be done using Microsoft Azure IoT Edge

Cons

  • Microsoft Azure IoT Edge must support more Azure services for Edge computing.
  • Like stream analytics integration with Microsoft Azure IoT Edge. Other services also should be integrated with Microsoft Azure IoT Edge for alerts and notifications.
  • Buffering issue needs to be resolved.

Return on Investment

  • Very High ROI as Microsoft Azure IoT Edge completely enables the features of Edge computing.
  • Real-time analytics can be achieved with Microsoft Azure IoT Edge.
  • No Negative impact as such.

Alternatives Considered

AWS IoT Greengrass

Other Software Used

Microsoft Azure IoT Hub, Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Cosmos DB

My experience with Microsoft Azure IoT Edge

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Microsoft Azure IoT Edge has enabled us to accelerate our educational service delivery and business at the edge with data from students, staff members, places and connected devices in unique ways that unleash innovation with IoT. Our mobile IoT deployments helps us drive efficiency and engage various stakeholder groups within our university environment, to develop new business with greater insights.

Pros

  • Innovative virtual learning environments that fasttracked our transition to remote learning at the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020
  • Mission critical business solutions for academic members of staff
  • Video conferencing and IoT devices connections

Cons

  • In technical support to customers who may not be very conversant with technical implementation
  • Payment solutions
  • And connection of legacy devices for organisations that still use such

Return on Investment

  • Very valuable return on investment for IT capex committed to the deployment
  • Improvements in overall organisational efficiency and agility
  • Repositioning the organisation to become digitally transformed

Other Software Used

Amazon Connect, Google ARCore, Fortinet on IBM Cloud