Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
90 lines (65 loc) · 5.89 KB

iot-hub-devguide-messages-d2c.md

File metadata and controls

90 lines (65 loc) · 5.89 KB
title description services documentationcenter author manager editor ms.service ms.devlang ms.topic ms.tgt_pltfrm ms.workload ms.date ms.author
Understand Azure IoT Hub device-to-cloud messaging | Microsoft Docs
Developer guide - how to use device-to-cloud messaging with IoT Hub. Includes information about sending both telemetry and non-telemtry data, and using routing to deliver messages.
iot-hub
.net
dominicbetts
timlt
iot-hub
multiple
article
na
na
09/19/2017
dobett

Send device-to-cloud messages to IoT Hub

To send time-series telemetry and alerts from your devices to your solution back end, send device-to-cloud messages from your device to your IoT hub. For a discussion of other device-to-cloud options supported by IoT Hub, see Device-to-cloud communications guidance.

You send device-to-cloud messages through a device-facing endpoint (/devices/{deviceId}/messages/events). Routing rules then route your messages to one of the service-facing endpoints on your IoT hub. Routing rules use the headers and body of the device-to-cloud messages flowing through your hub to determine where to route them. By default, messages are routed to the built-in service-facing endpoint (messages/events), that is compatible with Event Hubs. Therefore, you can use standard Event Hubs integration and SDKs to receive device-to-cloud messages in your solution back end.

IoT Hub implements device-to-cloud messaging using a streaming messaging pattern. IoT Hub's device-to-cloud messages are more like Event Hubs events than Service Bus messages in that there is a high volume of events passing through the service that can be read by multiple readers.

Device-to-cloud messaging with IoT Hub has the following characteristics:

  • Device-to-cloud messages are durable and retained in an IoT hub's default messages/events endpoint for up to seven days.
  • Device-to-cloud messages can be at most 256 KB, and can be grouped in batches to optimize sends. Batches can be at most 256 KB.
  • As explained in the Control access to IoT Hub section, IoT Hub enables per-device authentication and access control.
  • IoT Hub allows you to create up to 10 custom endpoints. Messages are delivered to the endpoints based on routes configured on your IoT hub. For more information, see Routing rules.
  • IoT Hub enables millions of simultaneously connected devices (see Quotas and throttling).
  • IoT Hub does not allow arbitrary partitioning. Device-to-cloud messages are partitioned based on their originating deviceId.

For more information about the differences between the IoT Hub and Event Hubs services, see Comparison of Azure IoT Hub and Azure Event Hubs.

Send non-telemetry traffic

Often, in addition to telemetry data points, devices send messages and requests that require separate execution and handling in the solution back end. For example, critical alerts that must trigger a specific action in the back end. You can easily write a routing rule to send these types of messages to an endpoint dedicated to their processing based on either a header on the message or a value in the message body.

For more information about the best way to process this kind of message, see the Tutorial: How to process IoT Hub device-to-cloud messages tutorial.

Route device-to-cloud messages

You have two options for routing device-to-cloud messages to your back-end apps:

Anti-spoofing properties

To avoid device spoofing in device-to-cloud messages, IoT Hub stamps all messages with the following properties:

  • ConnectionDeviceId
  • ConnectionDeviceGenerationId
  • ConnectionAuthMethod

The first two contain the deviceId and generationId of the originating device, as per Device identity properties.

The ConnectionAuthMethod property contains a JSON serialized object, with the following properties:

{
  "scope": "{ hub | device}",
  "type": "{ symkey | sas}",
  "issuer": "iothub"
}

Next steps

For information about the SDKs you can use to send device-to-cloud messages, see Azure IoT SDKs.

The Get Started tutorials show you how to send device-to-cloud messages from both simulated and physical devices. For more detail, see the Process IoT Hub device-to-cloud messages using routes tutorial.