Monitoring Services for Microsoft Azure IoT Solution

Recommended Monitoring Services for Microsoft Azure IoT Solution

Question

Your IoT solution consists of 10000 field devices, most of them being single field sensors.

In addition,there are 20 edge devices which serve as translation gateways for a number of leaf devices.

You need to implement a monitoring solution which is able to provide (1) general information of the connected devices and (2) specific, device level information (connection status etc.) of the gateway devices as critical components.

Which monitoring services are you recommended to use?

Answers

Explanations

Click on the arrows to vote for the correct answer

A. B. C. D.

Correct Answer: A.

Option A is CORRECT because for the generic view of the connected devices, in most cases the Azure Monitor's Connected devices metric is a good choice because it reports the number of devices connected to your IoT Hub.

For the critical elements of the infrastructure, however, Event Grid's per-device monitoring solution is recommended.

Option B is incorrect because Azure Monitor is great for “bulk” monitoring since it provides a metric Connected devices which, for example, can be used to trigger actions when it drops under a number.

Per-device monitoring, however, is not supported by Azure Monitor.

Option C is incorrect because Azure Monitor's general metrics are sufficient for the majority of the devices.

You need Event Grid's per-device capabilities for the gateways only.

Option D is incorrect because Azure Monitor doesn't provide the device-level monitoring capabilities.

Reference:

To monitor your IoT solution with 10000 field devices and 20 edge devices, you need a comprehensive monitoring solution that provides both general and specific device-level information. Azure offers several services that can help you achieve this. Let's review each of the recommended answers and explain their suitability for your scenario.

Option A: Use Azure Monitor for the general view; configure Event Grid for the gateways Azure Monitor is a fully managed service that provides a unified view of your Azure resources and other resources such as on-premises and multi-cloud environments. With Azure Monitor, you can collect and analyze telemetry data from various sources, including application and infrastructure logs, metrics, and traces. Azure Monitor provides various features, such as alerting, dashboards, and visualizations, that help you monitor and troubleshoot issues in your environment.

In this option, you can use Azure Monitor to monitor the general status of your IoT devices, such as connectivity, telemetry data, and health. For example, you can use Azure Monitor to set up alerts when a certain device group exceeds a particular threshold or when a particular telemetry value goes out of range. However, for the gateways, you can configure Event Grid, a fully managed event routing service that can provide near-real-time data delivery to Azure services, third-party applications, and custom code. You can use Event Grid to monitor the gateway devices' connection status, data ingestion rates, and other critical metrics.

Option B: Use Azure Monitor for both the sensors and the gateways This option recommends using Azure Monitor for monitoring both the field sensors and the gateways. Azure Monitor can collect telemetry data from various sources, including custom logs, metrics, and traces. Therefore, you can use Azure Monitor to collect and analyze telemetry data from both the field sensors and gateways.

However, keep in mind that Azure Monitor has some limitations when it comes to monitoring large-scale IoT deployments. For example, if you collect high-frequency telemetry data from a large number of devices, you may need to use other Azure services such as Azure Time Series Insights or Azure Stream Analytics to handle the volume of data. Therefore, you may need to optimize your telemetry data collection strategy to ensure that you can handle the volume of data.

Option C: Use Event Grid for the sensors and the gateways This option recommends using Event Grid to monitor both the field sensors and gateways. Event Grid is a fully managed event routing service that can provide near-real-time data delivery to Azure services, third-party applications, and custom code. You can use Event Grid to collect and analyze telemetry data from both the field sensors and gateways.

However, keep in mind that Event Grid is primarily designed for event-based architectures, where you want to react to specific events, such as device status changes or telemetry data ingestion rates. If you need to monitor the general status of your IoT devices, such as connectivity, health, and telemetry data, you may need to use other Azure services such as Azure Monitor or Azure Time Series Insights.

Option D: Event Grid for the field sensors; Azure Monitor for the gateways This option recommends using Event Grid to monitor the field sensors and Azure Monitor to monitor the gateways. This approach makes sense if you have a large number of field sensors, and you need to collect high-frequency telemetry data from them. Event Grid can efficiently handle the volume of data and provide near-real-time data delivery to Azure services and custom code. However, for the gateways, you may need a more comprehensive monitoring solution, such as Azure Monitor, that can provide alerts, dashboards, and visualizations to monitor the gateway's connection status, data ingestion rates, and other critical metrics.

In conclusion, option A is the most suitable for monitoring a large-scale IoT solution with 10000 field devices and 20 edge devices. Azure