Azure IoT Hub Allocation Policy for Large-Scale Device Connections

Distributing Device Connections in Azure IoT Hub: Best Allocation Policy

Question

You are working for a company which is about setting up a country-wide environmental monitoring system for real-time air pollution monitoring.

The system, in the first stage, will consist of 10000 sensor end-devices deployed all over three regions.

Your task is to connect these devices to an Azure IoT solution.

Because of the large number of devices, you decide to use three IoT Hubs, with the Device Provisioning Service.

Which is the best allocation policy you should use to distribute the device connections over the hubs?

Answers

Explanations

Click on the arrows to vote for the correct answer

A. B. C. D.

Correct Answer: B.

Option A is incorrect because there is no allocation policy named “Hashed distribution”

Hashed distribution is applied by DPS in the case of Lowest latency, when more than one linked IoT hubs can provide the same latency.

Option B is CORRECT because in order to get the best performance and an actual real-time behavior, the best solution is to allocate the devices to the IoT Hub with the lowest latency.

The built-in “Lowest latency” allocation policy is the best choice here.

Option C is incorrect because with the Evenly weighted distribution (which is the default allocation policy) the requirement of real-time behavior will not be touched.

In the case of several IoT hubs, the solution should be optimized for latency.

Option D is incorrect because distribution by static configuration will not take into account the latency (real-time) requirement.

In addition, it doesn't make use of the DPS's built-in automatism.

Reference:

When connecting a large number of IoT devices to an Azure IoT solution, it's important to consider the allocation policy for distributing the devices over multiple IoT hubs.

In this scenario, the best allocation policy to use for distributing the device connections over the hubs is the Hashed distribution. This means that the IoT Hub used for a particular device is determined by hashing the device's ID or connection string, resulting in a random but consistent distribution of devices across the IoT hubs. This ensures that the devices are evenly distributed across the three regions, providing a balanced workload and avoiding overloading a single hub.

Here are some reasons why Hashed distribution is the best choice in this scenario:

  1. Scalability: As the number of devices grows, the Hashed distribution policy can easily scale to handle the increased load by simply adding more IoT hubs.

  2. Resilience: If one of the IoT hubs fails or experiences issues, the Hashed distribution policy ensures that the workload is distributed across the other hubs, preventing a single point of failure.

  3. Efficient use of resources: By distributing the devices across multiple hubs, each hub can handle a smaller number of devices, which results in more efficient use of resources and faster processing times.

  4. Simplified management: With the Hashed distribution policy, there is no need for manual configuration or maintenance of enrollment lists, which can be time-consuming and error-prone.

Therefore, in this scenario, the Hashed distribution policy is the best choice for distributing the device connections over the hubs to ensure a balanced workload and efficient use of resources.