Five Arguments for Why Microsoft Azure Is the Best Option for Running Industrial IoT Solutions

The current technological landscape demands digital transformation, and the industrial internet of things (IoT) is undoubtedly one of the best alternatives for that. Industrial IoT solutions leverage connected sensors, actuators, and other smart devices to monitor, track, and analyze available data and make the best use of it for enhanced efficiency and minimized costs.

However, it leaves us with an important question — Which cloud computing platform is the best option for running industrial IoT solutions?

Well, according to research by Statista, over 70% of organizations are using Microsoft Azure for their cloud services. Moreover, Gartner has recently reported that Microsoft Azure is one of the key leading players out of the 16 top global companies considered for industrial IoT platforms.

With these stats and facts, you probably got the answer. However, you might be wondering what makes Microsoft Azure a popular choice over others.

This blog will outline the five significant reasons why Azure is the preferred cloud IoT option in the industrial IoT infrastructure. Moreover, you will also learn how it can benefit development teams to optimize their operational efficiencies.

Microsoft Azure as a Cloud IoT Platform: An Overview

Launched in 2010, Microsoft Azure is one of the three leading private and public cloud computing platforms worldwide. Although Azure was founded comparatively later, its intriguing features have made it a strong contending faction in the AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud debate.

Moreover, the global revenue growth of Microsoft Azure stood at 40% in the last quarter of 2022. Also, its total revenue in terms of public cloud platform as a service (PaaS) was $111 billion till last year.

It’s the versatility of this cloud IoT platform that attracts the eye of software developers, engineers, and designers. IoT solutions by Azure cover almost every aspect of industrial IoT development, from linking devices and systems to providing decision-makers with valuable insights. The following section highlights some of the benefits of Microsoft Azure cloud IoT solutions.

Benefits of Azure Cloud IoT

1. Simplicity and Convenience

One of the best things about the products from Microsoft is that they are convenient for all types of users, irrespective of their skills. From integrating app templates to leveraging SDKs, everything requires minimal coding. In addition, the platform provides users with several shortcuts for easy wireframing, prototyping, and deployment.

2. Robust Network of Partners

Just like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure has an ever-growing list of globally acclaimed IoT partners. These include a vast community of software developers and IoT hardware manufacturers.

3. Interactive Service Integrations

In the Azure IoT Central, one of the core IoT solutions of Microsoft Azure, you will find a plethora of fascinating tools and services. For instance, with the help of Accuweather, you can get insights in the form of weather intelligence reports.

Similarly, developers can build a virtual representation of their physical IoT environment with Azure Digital Twins. This feature can also help identify the dependencies and correlations between different parts of the environment.

4. Top-Notch Security

Keeping cybersecurity threats in mind, Microsoft has focused specifically on the security aspects of all its products and services. Each Azure cloud IoT service is equipped with its own security features to help protect the data and prevent the code files from getting infected with viruses.

Reasons Why Microsoft Azure Is the Best Option for Running Industrial IoT Solutions

Azure IoT Central — A Robust SaaS Platform

Although developers can easily develop end-to-end IoT products using the basic Microsoft Azure services, the process of plumbing can feel complex anyway. In such cases, Azure IoT Central can be an ideal solution to link your existing devices and manage them using the cloud. With this, you wouldn’t need to build a custom solution.

Azure IoT Central is a SaaS product that extracts Azure’s fundamental IoT PaaS capabilities, making it convenient for you to procure value from the linked devices. Besides this, the public-facing APIs help provide a seamless user experience throughout the development process; be it while creating dashboards or connecting IoT devices.

A Rich and Vibrant Partner Ecosystem

One crucial thing that needs to be understood to create a successful IoT solution is that it’s not just about writing code and deploying software. Instead, it’s more about how efficiently it could manage the devices and analyze data.

For this, you need a professional system integration team that can pick the right hardware and incorporate it with legacy OT technologies.

Microsoft Azure cloud IoT solutions provide users with a massive range of software and hardware offerings. For instance, consider one of its ranges of products, say, Azure Stack Edge. The developers can choose from its robust, battery-powered device or standard server-grade alternative fueled by 32vCPUs, 204 gigabytes RAM, 2.5 terabytes local storage, and 2 NVIDIA A2 GPUs.

This is one of the reasons why several popular industrial IoT players, like Schneider, ABB, PTC, Siemens, etc., have developed their platforms over the Microsoft cloud. All these examples show that Microsoft Azure has a rich and vibrant partner ecosystem, delivering intuitive industrial IoT solutions.

A DevOps-Friendly Platform

The role of edge computing is quite significant in developing industrial IoT solutions. Azure IoT Edge, a robust edge computing platform, performs that function well, making developers and system operators more efficient.

Azure IoT Edge can run on both AMD64 and ARM64 platforms, and one can use it to form a channel between the public cloud and local devices. Moreover, business logic can be written by developers as standard Docker containers, which can then be installed as modules in Azure IoT Edge. Also, operators can incorporate Kubernetes, an open-source tool for automating management and installation with Azure IoT Edge to constantly monitor the deployments.

An Ultimate Level of Security

As discussed earlier, Microsoft has invested both time and money in enhancing the security aspects of all its products and services. Here are some of the security services you can avail of with Microsoft Azure:

Azure Sphere

It is the one-stop solution for users seeking protection for cloud-to-edge and edge-to-cloud integration. Since the device is securely integrated with Azure IoT Central and Azure IoT Hub, users can easily and quickly build secure connected solutions.

Azure Defender for IoT

Users can use this solution to get end-to-end security for IoT devices. Azure Defender for IoT leverages features such as behavioral analytics and threat intelligence to constantly monitor IoT devices for unauthorized and unwanted activities.

Easy Integration with AI and Data Analytics

To make an IoT solution more functional and efficient, it is crucial to integrate it with advanced technologies, like artificial intelligence, machine learning, or big data analytics. Incorporating all these technologies makes the processes much simpler and saves both effort and time for developers.

With Azure Stream Analytics, developers can quickly store and process the local telemetry data. Moreover, Azure Data Lake or Azure Cosmos Database can also be used to store data ingested from sensors. It can then be passed through Azure ML and Power BI in order to perform predictive analytics and form predictive models derived from this data.

Wrapping Up

Several experts describe Microsoft Azure as an IoT cloud platform with ‘limitless potential’ and ‘unlimited possibilities,’ and now you probably know the reason why. In fact, it is reported that observing the rapid growth of Azure, the day is not far when it will surpass the dominance of Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Microsoft Azure has got everything in the package, and that includes services for data management and analysis, too. Its intriguing features and cloud computing capabilities can help developers construct an industrial IoT environment in the best way possible.