I want to talk about a fairly new product that you may not be aware of: Azure IoT Operations, which GA’d last November (it was first announced at Ignite in November 2023). Here is an excellent short video showing it in action (note: watching it may make you hungry).
Think of Azure IoT Operations as the control center for your digital operations at the edge. It sits directly alongside your machines and sensors—on the factory floor, in warehouses, or across distributed sites—and ensures that data from these environments flows smoothly into the cloud. Built on modern, scalable infrastructure, it connects operational systems with business applications, making it easier to unlock insights, improve efficiency, and respond quickly to changes in your environment.
The real impact comes from bringing together Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT). For years, IT has handled business data and applications while OT has run the physical equipment. Azure IoT Operations unifies the two. Imagine a factory where equipment performance data is captured in real time and immediately analyzed to predict failures before they happen. You can then use Microsoft Fabric to build real-time dashboards with visualizations that show the health of each asset and trigger alerts when anomalies are detected. These dashboards can be displayed right on the shop floor, giving operators the information they need to take immediate action and prevent costly downtime. The result is lower maintenance costs, higher productivity, and more consistent product quality. By securely connecting these systems to the cloud, companies can also optimize energy usage, reduce waste, and make faster, data-driven decisions. In short, Azure IoT Operations helps organizations modernize operations, cut costs, and gain the agility needed to compete in today’s digital-first economy.
Here is an Azure IoT Operations architecture overview:
At its core, Azure IoT Operations is a set of data services that run on Azure Arc–enabled edge Kubernetes clusters, where you can deploy Azure IoT Operations by using the Azure portal or the Azure CLI.. These services work together to make it easier to capture, process, and route data from assets on the shop floor to applications in the cloud.
- MQTT broker – An edge-native broker that enables event-driven architectures, allowing devices and applications to exchange messages reliably in real time.
- Connector for OPC UA – Handles the complexity of OPC UA communication with servers and devices, making it easier to integrate industrial equipment into the data pipeline.
- Data flows – Provide data transformation and contextualization capabilities. They let you enrich and reshape raw messages and then route them to a variety of destinations, including cloud endpoints.
- Operations experience – A web-based UI that gives operational technology (OT) teams a unified view to manage assets, devices, and data flows. IT administrators can also use Azure Arc site manager (preview) to group IoT Operations instances by physical location, making it easier for OT users to find and manage deployments.
Together, these services create a consistent, secure, and flexible environment for IT and OT teams to collaborate, ensuring that edge data is not only captured but made meaningful and actionable.
One of the biggest challenges in IoT is balancing the needs of IT and OT. IT teams want control, governance, and security. OT teams—those who actually run the machines on the shop floor or in the field—want simple tools that let them keep operations running without opening tickets for IT every time a change is needed. This is exactly where the Azure IoT Operations experience comes in.
The experience is a web-based interface that provides a unified view into your IoT Operations environment. Instead of sifting through Kubernetes manifests or JSON configs, OT users can log into a simple portal and manage the things that matter to them: assets, data flows, and system health.
Through this experience, you can:
- Manage assets by defining machines, controllers, and sensors so they are represented in a way that makes sense for operations staff.
- Configure data flows that determine how telemetry moves from devices, through the MQTT broker, into transformations, and eventually to cloud endpoints like Event Hubs or Fabric.
- Apply transformations directly at the edge to contextualize data before sending it on—reducing both latency and bandwidth costs.
- Monitor status and health with visibility into system throughput, errors, and connectivity, all in one place.
Here is a sample of the overview page in the Azure IoT Operations experience:
The real value is that it lets OT teams operate independently, while IT still has the governance and security controls they need in the background. IT administrators use Azure Arc to deploy and secure the underlying infrastructure, and they can group multiple IoT Operations instances by physical location using the Azure Arc site manager (preview). But once everything is in place, OT staff can work in the experience every day without needing deep technical expertise.
Here is a sample of building a data flow in the Azure IoT Operations experience:
To connect to the cloud from Azure IoT Operations, you can use the following data flow destination endpoints:
Microsoft always supports three generally available (GA) versions of Azure IoT Operations at any one time: the latest version, and the two previous minor versions.
Currently, there are only two minor versions available. Azure support is currently available for the following versions:
Make sure to check out the supported environments and supported regions.
Note that Azure IoT Operations is different from a product I talked about in a previous blog post called Azure IoT Central. When deciding between Azure IoT Operations and Azure IoT Central, it helps to understand that while both deal with connecting and managing IoT devices, they serve very different purposes. Azure IoT Operations is best thought of as a set of building blocks for creating industrial-strength IoT solutions, particularly in environments that require hybrid architectures and edge processing. It gives you full control over protocols like OPC UA, Modbus, and MQTT, and allows you to design the data flows, monitoring, and integration points exactly as your business needs. This flexibility makes it ideal for complex industrial scenarios where low latency and tight IT/OT integration are essential.
Azure IoT Central, on the other hand, is a fully managed SaaS offering. Instead of building from the ground up, you get a ready-made platform with device provisioning, templates, monitoring, and dashboards already included. It’s designed for speed and simplicity, letting you connect devices and gain insights with very little setup. The tradeoff is that you sacrifice some deep customization and architectural control. For most businesses that need a predictable, subscription-based model and quick time to value, IoT Central is a great fit.
The choice ultimately comes down to how much control and flexibility you need versus how quickly you want to deploy. If you are building a large-scale, industrial IoT platform that requires fine-grained control and edge-heavy workloads, Azure IoT Operations is the right tool. If your priority is getting started fast with minimal overhead, Azure IoT Central will meet your needs. Both approaches are valid—it’s about matching the tool to the problem you’re solving.
More info:
Accelerate industrial transformation with Azure IoT operations (Ignite video)
Real time data ingestion with Azure IoT Operations and Microsoft Fabric CWB virtual meet up (video)
Azure IoT Operations: Empowering the Future of Connectivity and Automation
Uncovering Azure IoT Operations: A New Era of Industrial IoT
The post Azure IoT Operations first appeared on James Serra’s Blog.
