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Get started with Azure IoT Hub (.NET) \| Microsoft Docs	How to send device-to-cloud messages from a device to an Azure IoT hub using the Azure IoT SDKs for .NET. You create a simulated device app to send messages, a service app to register your device in the identity registry, and a service app to read the device-to-cloud messages from the IoT hub.	iot-hub	.net	dominicbetts	timlt		f40604ff-8fd6-4969-9e99-8574fbcf036c	iot-hub	dotnet	hero-article	na	na	12/15/2016	dobett

Get started with Azure IoT Hub (.NET)

[!INCLUDE iot-hub-selector-get-started]

At the end of this tutorial, you have three .NET console apps:

CreateDeviceIdentity, which creates a device identity and associated security key to connect your simulated device app.
ReadDeviceToCloudMessages, which displays the telemetry sent by your simulated device app.
SimulatedDevice, which connects to your IoT hub with the device identity created earlier, and sends a telemetry message every second by using the MQTT protocol.

Note

For information about the Azure IoT SDKs that you can use to build both applications to run on devices, and your solution back end, see Azure IoT SDKs.

To complete this tutorial, you need the following:

Microsoft Visual Studio 2015.
An active Azure account. (If you don't have an account, you can create a free account in just a couple of minutes.)

[!INCLUDE iot-hub-get-started-create-hub]

You have now created your IoT hub, and you have the host name and IoT Hub connection string that you need to complete the rest of this tutorial.

Create a device identity

In this section, you create a .NET console app that creates a device identity in the identity registry in your IoT hub. A device cannot connect to IoT hub unless it has an entry in the identity registry. For more information, see the "Identity registry" section of the IoT Hub developer guide. When you run this console app, it generates a unique device ID and key that your device can use to identify itself when it sends device-to-cloud messages to IoT Hub.

In Visual Studio, add a Visual C# Windows Classic Desktop project to the current solution by using the Console Application project template. Make sure the .NET Framework version is 4.5.1 or later. Name the project CreateDeviceIdentity.
In Solution Explorer, right-click the CreateDeviceIdentity project, and then click Manage NuGet Packages.
In the NuGet Package Manager window, select Browse, search for microsoft.azure.devices, select Install to install the Microsoft.Azure.Devices package, and accept the terms of use. This procedure downloads, installs, and adds a reference to the Azure IoT service SDK NuGet package and its dependencies.

Add the following using statements at the top of the Program.cs file:

 using Microsoft.Azure.Devices;
 using Microsoft.Azure.Devices.Common.Exceptions;

Add the following fields to the Program class. Replace the placeholder value with the IoT Hub connection string for the hub that you created in the previous section.
```
 static RegistryManager registryManager;
 static string connectionString = "{iot hub connection string}";
```

Add the following method to the Program class:

 private static async Task AddDeviceAsync()
 {
     string deviceId = "myFirstDevice";
     Device device;
     try
     {
         device = await registryManager.AddDeviceAsync(new Device(deviceId));
     }
     catch (DeviceAlreadyExistsException)
     {
         device = await registryManager.GetDeviceAsync(deviceId);
     }
     Console.WriteLine("Generated device key: {0}", device.Authentication.SymmetricKey.PrimaryKey);
 }

This method creates a device identity with ID myFirstDevice. (If that device ID already exists in the identity registry, the code simply retrieves the existing device information.) The app then displays the primary key for that identity. You use this key in the simulated device app to connect to your IoT hub.

Finally, add the following lines to the Main method:

 registryManager = RegistryManager.CreateFromConnectionString(connectionString);
 AddDeviceAsync().Wait();
 Console.ReadLine();

Run this application, and make a note of the device key.

Note

The IoT Hub identity registry only stores device identities to enable secure access to the IoT hub. It stores device IDs and keys to use as security credentials, and an enabled/disabled flag that you can use to disable access for an individual device. If your application needs to store other device-specific metadata, it should use an application-specific store. For more information, see IoT Hub developer guide.

Receive device-to-cloud messages

In this section, you create a .NET console app that reads device-to-cloud messages from IoT Hub. An IoT hub exposes an Azure Event Hubs-compatible endpoint to enable you to read device-to-cloud messages. To keep things simple, this tutorial creates a basic reader that is not suitable for a high throughput deployment. To learn how to process device-to-cloud messages at scale, see the Process device-to-cloud messages tutorial. For more information about how to process messages from Event Hubs, see the Get Started with Event Hubs tutorial. (This tutorial is applicable to the IoT Hub Event Hub-compatible endpoints.)

Note

The Event Hub-compatible endpoint for reading device-to-cloud messages always uses the AMQP protocol.

In Visual Studio, add a Visual C# Windows Classic Desktop project to the current solution, by using the Console Application project template. Make sure the .NET Framework version is 4.5.1 or later. Name the project ReadDeviceToCloudMessages.
In Solution Explorer, right-click the ReadDeviceToCloudMessages project, and then click Manage NuGet Packages.
In the NuGet Package Manager window, search for WindowsAzure.ServiceBus, select Install, and accept the terms of use. This procedure downloads, installs, and adds a reference to Azure Service Bus, with all its dependencies. This package enables the application to connect to the Event Hub-compatible endpoint on your IoT hub.

Add the following using statements at the top of the Program.cs file:

 using Microsoft.ServiceBus.Messaging;
 using System.Threading;

Add the following fields to the Program class. Replace the placeholder value with the IoT Hub connection string for the hub you created in the "Create an IoT hub" section.
```
 static string connectionString = "{iothub connection string}";
 static string iotHubD2cEndpoint = "messages/events";
 static EventHubClient eventHubClient;
```

Add the following method to the Program class:

 private static async Task ReceiveMessagesFromDeviceAsync(string partition, CancellationToken ct)
 {
     var eventHubReceiver = eventHubClient.GetDefaultConsumerGroup().CreateReceiver(partition, DateTime.UtcNow);
     while (true)
     {
         if (ct.IsCancellationRequested) break;
         EventData eventData = await eventHubReceiver.ReceiveAsync();
         if (eventData == null) continue;

         string data = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(eventData.GetBytes());
         Console.WriteLine("Message received. Partition: {0} Data: '{1}'", partition, data);
     }
 }

This method uses an EventHubReceiver instance to receive messages from all the IoT hub device-to-cloud receive partitions. Notice how you pass a DateTime.Now parameter when you create the EventHubReceiver object, so that it only receives messages sent after it starts. This filter is useful in a test environment so you can see the current set of messages. In a production environment, your code should make sure that it processes all the messages. For more information, see the How to process IoT Hub device-to-cloud messages tutorial.

Finally, add the following lines to the Main method:

 Console.WriteLine("Receive messages. Ctrl-C to exit.\n");
 eventHubClient = EventHubClient.CreateFromConnectionString(connectionString, iotHubD2cEndpoint);

 var d2cPartitions = eventHubClient.GetRuntimeInformation().PartitionIds;

 CancellationTokenSource cts = new CancellationTokenSource();

 System.Console.CancelKeyPress += (s, e) =>
 {
   e.Cancel = true;
   cts.Cancel();
   Console.WriteLine("Exiting...");
 };

 var tasks = new List<Task>();
 foreach (string partition in d2cPartitions)
 {
    tasks.Add(ReceiveMessagesFromDeviceAsync(partition, cts.Token));
 }  
 Task.WaitAll(tasks.ToArray());

Create a simulated device app

In this section, you create a .NET console app that simulates a device that sends device-to-cloud messages to an IoT hub.

In Visual Studio, add a Visual C# Windows Classic Desktop project to the current solution, by using the Console Application project template. Make sure the .NET Framework version is 4.5.1 or later. Name the project SimulatedDevice.
In Solution Explorer, right-click the SimulatedDevice project, and then click Manage NuGet Packages.
In the NuGet Package Manager window, select Browse, search for Microsoft.Azure.Devices.Client, select Install to install the Microsoft.Azure.Devices.Client package, and accept the terms of use. This procedure downloads, installs, and adds a reference to the Azure IoT device SDK NuGet package and its dependencies.

Add the following using statement at the top of the Program.cs file:

 using Microsoft.Azure.Devices.Client;
 using Newtonsoft.Json;

Add the following fields to the Program class. Substitute the placeholder values with the IoT hub host name you retrieved in the "Create an IoT hub" section, and the device key retrieved in the "Create a device identity" section.
```
 static DeviceClient deviceClient;
 static string iotHubUri = "{iot hub hostname}";
 static string deviceKey = "{device key}";
```

Add the following method to the Program class:

 private static async void SendDeviceToCloudMessagesAsync()
 {
     double avgWindSpeed = 10; // m/s
     Random rand = new Random();

     while (true)
     {
         double currentWindSpeed = avgWindSpeed + rand.NextDouble() * 4 - 2;

         var telemetryDataPoint = new
         {
             deviceId = "myFirstDevice",
             windSpeed = currentWindSpeed
         };
         var messageString = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(telemetryDataPoint);
         var message = new Message(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(messageString));

         await deviceClient.SendEventAsync(message);
         Console.WriteLine("{0} > Sending message: {1}", DateTime.Now, messageString);

         Task.Delay(1000).Wait();
     }
 }

This method sends a new device-to-cloud message every second. The message contains a JSON-serialized object, with the device ID and a randomly generated number to simulate a wind speed sensor.

Finally, add the following lines to the Main method:
```
 Console.WriteLine("Simulated device\n");
 deviceClient = DeviceClient.Create(iotHubUri, new DeviceAuthenticationWithRegistrySymmetricKey("myFirstDevice", deviceKey), TransportType.Mqtt);

 SendDeviceToCloudMessagesAsync();
 Console.ReadLine();
```
By default, the Create method creates a DeviceClient instance that uses the AMQP protocol to communicate with IoT Hub. To use the MQTT or HTTP protocol, use the override of the Create method that enables you to specify the protocol. If you use the HTTP protocol, you should also add the Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi.Client NuGet package to your project to include the System.Net.Http.Formatting namespace.

This tutorial takes you through the steps to create an IoT Hub simulated device app. You can also use the Connected Service for Azure IoT Hub Visual Studio extension to add the necessary code to your device app.

Note

To keep things simple, this tutorial does not implement any retry policy. In production code, you should implement retry policies (such as an exponential backoff), as suggested in the MSDN article Transient Fault Handling.

Run the apps

You are now ready to run the apps.

In Visual Studio, in Solution Explorer, right-click your solution, and then click Set StartUp projects. Select Multiple startup projects, and then select Start as the action for both the ReadDeviceToCloudMessages and SimulatedDevice projects.
Press F5 to start both apps running. The console output from the SimulatedDevice app shows the messages your simulated device app sends to your IoT hub. The console output from the ReadDeviceToCloudMessages app shows the messages that your IoT hub receives.
The Usage tile in the Azure portal shows the number of messages sent to the IoT hub:

Next steps

In this tutorial, you configured an IoT hub in the Azure portal, and then created a device identity in the IoT hub's identity registry. You used this device identity to enable the simulated device app to send device-to-cloud messages to the IoT hub. You also created an app that displays the messages received by the IoT hub.

To continue getting started with IoT Hub and to explore other IoT scenarios, see:

Connecting your device
Getting started with device management
Getting started with the IoT Gateway SDK

To learn how to extend your IoT solution and process device-to-cloud messages at scale, see the Process device-to-cloud messages tutorial.

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Get started with Azure IoT Hub (.NET)

Create a device identity

Receive device-to-cloud messages

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Get started with Azure IoT Hub (.NET)

Create a device identity

Receive device-to-cloud messages

Create a simulated device app

Run the apps

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