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
This page offers a good overview about the different IoT options on Azure: https://docs.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.
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 ║
╚══════════════════════════════╩════════════════════════════════╝
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.
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.
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
