Microsoft Azure IoT Hub previews automated device provisioning

Microsoft has announced the public preview of its Azure IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service.

This offering has the potential to be a significant time and labor saver. With the Device Provisioning Service, Microsoft offers:

• Zero-touch device provisioning
• Scalability to millions of devices
• Fully automated provisioning, eliminating the time and labor of configuring and registering devices

Microsoft's Sam George, partner director for Azure Internet of Things, describes how manual provisioning in effect has stifled the size of IoT deployments. Each device needs a unique identity to enable per-device access revocation (for if/when the device is compromised). This is impossible at IoT scale, which would require applying connection credentials to each of millions of devices. And, complete provisioning often requires information that was unavailable when the device was manufactured (e.g., who purchased the device, what it is used to do). Finally, devices require software and/or firmware updates.

The most obvious provisioning scenario is the initial setup, and Microsoft promises zero-touch provisioning to a single IoT solution without requiring hardcoded IoT Hub connection information in the factory. Other scenarios which the Device Provisioning Service (DPS) enables include (among others):

• automatically configuring devices for solution-specific needs
• load balancing devices across multiple hubs
• connecting a device to the IoT hub with the nearest geo-location
• re-provisioning based on a change in the device such as a change in ownership or location

Microsoft offers this flow diagram to explain the process that enables those usages: