Fabric RTI 101: Azure IoT Hubs

Azure IoT Hub is a specialized service designed specifically for connecting and managing IoT devices at scale. While Azure Event Hubs is a general-purpose streaming service, IoT Hub focuses on the unique challenges that come with millions of devices out in the real world.

First and foremost, IoT Hub provides secure, reliable connections for those devices. In an IoT deployment, you might have sensors, machines, or even entire fleets of vehicles sending telemetry data up to the cloud. IoT Hub can support millions of devices connecting simultaneously, each streaming their data in real time.

A big differentiator is that IoT Hub doesn’t just transport messages — it also manages device identity and authentication. Every device that connects is known, registered, and verified. This is critical because you don’t want just any device pushing data into your system. IoT Hub gives you granular control over security at the device level.

Another important capability is bi-directional messaging. Data isn’t just flowing one way — from device to cloud. You can also send commands and messages back down to devices. For example, if a sensor is reporting abnormal readings, you could push a configuration update or even a shutdown command right back to that device through IoT Hub. That two-way communication is essential for many real-world scenarios.

And of course, IoT Hub integrates tightly with Event Hubs and Fabric. You can stream telemetry into Event Hubs for large-scale event processing, or directly into Fabric Eventstreams for real-time analytics, dashboards, and automated actions. This integration makes IoT Hub the natural entry point for any IoT-driven real-time architecture in the Microsoft ecosystem.

You can think of IoT Hub as the air traffic control tower for your IoT devices. Each airplane — or in this case, each device — has a unique identity, communicates securely with the tower, and can both send updates and receive instructions. The tower keeps everything organized, secure, and flowing smoothly, even when thousands of planes are in the sky at once.

So, IoT Hub is more than just a pipe for device telemetry. It’s a managed, secure, two-way communication hub that bridges the gap between billions of devices in the physical world and your real-time analytics in Fabric.
 

Learn more about Fabric RTI

If you really want to learn about RTI right now, we have an online on-demand course that you can enrol in, right now. You’ll find it at Mastering Microsoft Fabric Real-Time Intelligence

2026-02-06