What is the difference between Azure IoT Hub and Azure IoT Central?

Question

I used Azure IoT Hub earlier and now I found a new topic Azure IoT Central which looks as same as the Azure IoT Hub.

I am confused with the difference between these IoT Services, Can anyone explain me the difference and which one is better between Azure IoT Central and Azure IoT Hub?

Thanks in advance

Angers

Answer 1

This page offers a good overview about the different IoT options on Azure: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/iot-central/overview-iot-options

Microsoft Azure IoT Central and Azure IoT offer several options for building an IoT solution. These options are appropriate for different sets of customer requirements:

Azure IoT Central is a software as a service (SaaS) solution that uses a model-based approach to help you to build enterprise-grade IoT solutions without requiring expertise in cloud-solution development.

Azure IoT solution accelerators are an enterprise-grade collection of solution accelerators built on Azure platform as a service (PaaS) that help you accelerate the development of custom IoT solutions.

All of those build on IoT Hub which is the foundational PaaS (Plattform as a Service) offering for device connectivity, management and communication.

Ious

I went through the link, But Still, in doubt :( IoT hub is PaaS and IoT Central is SaaS, So we can not integrate IoT Central with our project? as IoT hub have the SDKs available to integrate with a project? do we have to manage all the IoT central device and stuff through its control panel? – Angers

IoT Central really is there for when you want a pretty much ready-made solution vs. building your own IoT solution that's tailored for your needs. If you fall into the second category, you will build your frontend and everything yourself. You could also use IoT Central and connect devices "manually". In this case you just need to make sure that the devices send telemetry in the right format so that IoT Central can understand it – Ious

yes thanks, This means we will have to use only IoT Central control panel for sending and receiving telemetry right? can't we send msg from the REST or by SDK like IoT Hub? because my requirement is to manage all the IoT stuff from my code end, So in this case what would you prefer IoT Hub or IoT Central? – Angers

If you use IoT Central, it uses an IoT Hub under the hood. It's just more hidden to you as the user since it is a SaaS service. – Ious

Just deploy an IoT Central instance and try it out and see for yourself what't there – Ious

Answer 2

Differences between the two IoT offerings by Azure:

Shiau

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Answer 3

Here is a table view on major differences between IOT central and IOT hub

╔══════════════════════════════╦════════════════════════════════╗
║  Azure IOT Central           ║ Azure IOT Hub                  ║
╠══════════════════════════════╬════════════════════════════════╣
║ A SaaS solution that makes   ║ Managed service, acts as a     ║
║ it easy to get started and   ║ central message hub for        ║
║ pull new data into your      ║ bi-directional communication   ║
║ existing business processes. ║ between IOT app and the device ║
╠══════════════════════════════╬════════════════════════════════╣
║ Provide App template for     ║ Anyone can use IOT hub to      ║
║ Priority Industry Verticals  ║ build IOT solutions with       ║
║                              ║ reliable and secure            ║
║                              ║ communications between         ║
║                              ║ millions of IOT devices        ║
╠══════════════════════════════╬════════════════════════════════╣
║ Provides Seamless device     ║ Supports Multi-language and    ║
║ connectivity  and management ║ open source SDKs               ║
╠══════════════════════════════╬════════════════════════════════╣
║ Connect millions             ║ Provision devices at scale     ║
║ of devices and manage        ║ with IOT device provisioning   ║
║ ingress/egress of data       ║ service                        ║
╚══════════════════════════════╩════════════════════════════════╝

Capillarity

Answer 4

Do you want a ready to use IoT platform with storage, device registration, data visualisation, rule creation capability against data and many other futures? Then use IoT Central. It is a SaaS, meaning Microsoft will keep adding new capabilities and/or update and manage all those above-mentioned bundled services for you. Moreover, it has IoT Hub bundled with those services for you. Spoiler: IoT Central is becoming more and more flexible as you can route data to other services from this platform if you ever need to!

Do you need a service on the cloud to communicate your device to and then configure everything else (such as storage, visualisation and rule generation against data) yourself? Then use IoT Hub: it is considered as the gateway for your data into cloud from IoT devices. It is a PaaS, meaning Microsoft will support and update this service, but you will manage all the bundling with above-mentioned services yourself.

When you have a large number of devices to manage, you would rather go with the PaaS service and create your own solution, as you would not really care about the visuals too much (analytics tools are surely not meant hear). You would rather bundle the set of services that you chose (e.g. adding Machine Learning) and just stream data and get insights.

Tacmahack

Answer 5

Azure IoT Central is a fully managed global IoT SaaS (software-as-a-service) solution that makes it easy to connect, monitor, and manage your IoT assets at scale. Site Link

Azure IoT Hub is managed service to enable bi-directional communication between IoT devices and Azure - Site Link

Frustrated

Answer 6

The page Azure technologies and services for creating IoT solutions summarizes when you should consider using IoT Central or IoT Hub and includes brief overviews of some of the other Azure IoT services.

Corbet

Answer 7

It can you help to select IoT tech: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/iot/product-selector/

just play with selections and see MS suggestions

Krissie