Arduino library for Azure IoT

Hi woter , let me try and help answer your questions and for the sake of future readers new to Arduino and/or Azure RTOS, I want to use this opportunity to clarify some things.

In short:

To find boards that support Azure RTOS, check out our partners here.

You can run Azure RTOS on some Arduino boards as solution-squad points out in their response.

For the application you are trying to build, I don't think you get much from Azure RTOS and I believe you can use an Arduino board + the library discussed in this post (assuming your Arduino board has network + TLS capabilities) to connect it to Azure IoT and implement the rest in the Cloud. You will find a list of the Arduino Compatible boards this library has been tested with in the library repo at https://aka.ms/arduino

Longer answer to help clarify Arduino vs. Azure RTOS:

Arduino is a term used loosely to describe several things (depending on the context): it's a company, open source hardware, open source software/middleware and a community, not just the hardware.

You can indeed buy hardware kits from Arduino (Arduino UNO, Zero,...), but you can also purchase Arduino-compatible hardware from other vendors and distributors (Adafruit, Sparkfun, Seeed Studios,...).

At the end of the day Arduino, as a hardware + software technology, aims at simplifying the programming of hardware (accessing and interacting with hardware and sensors resources).

Arduino hardware and software are primarily used for prototyping and hobbyist projects. Few commercial products use Arduino hardware or software for many reasons including cost, certifiability, ...

Azure RTOS is a Real Time Operating System designed for industrial or commercial scenarios and that supports a specific set of hardware. It is a set of libraries that can be used separately (Real Time scheduler, Network management, USB management, File system management, Embedded User Interface, Azure connectivity). It is licensed to hardware manufacturers and final customers usually buy the bundle (hardware + Azure RTOS) and don't pay for the Azure RTOS license as it comes with the hardware. You can find the list of our partners carrying boards supported by Azure RTOS here. You can get and use Azure RTOS for free on one of the supported hardware, but you can't ship commercial products without the license. You can also try and port Azure RTOS to hardware not in the supported list, but that's embedded developer work that is not trivial and once again won't allow you to go to production without a license. You can also find ports from communities like the one mentioned by solution-squad.

The "Azure" in "Azure RTOS" is not making it different from other embedded operating systems like Free RTOS or middleware like Arduino in terms of connectivity to Azure as you can use our open source SDKs and libraries to connect pretty much anything that supports connecting to the Internet and can do TLS. As a matter of fact this very blog post is about introducing the library that allows connecting an Arduino-Compatible device easily to Azure IoT.

Thanks for clarifying

PS: I love your show. 

This is great - well done MS & Arduino. Is there going to be a sketch for GMS - G3 as well?

Hi there, we don't have samples showing cellular connectivity. Soon we should have samples showing how to leverage cellular modem with the middleware for FreeRTOS, but not specifically for the Arduino Library.

Please excuse my ignorance, but an Arduino is a piece of hardware that I can buy. Azure RTOS is an operating system that runs on embedded systems. Googling "Azure RTOS hardware" doesn't yield much. What do I need to search for to buy hardware to run Azure RTOS?

Early days but I am designing a solution to read an M-Bus (water) meter, perform some calculations and then through a banking API, send a payment to a utility company.  I want the device to be as lightweight (and cheap) as possible, hence exploring Arduino over a Raspberry Pi, however as my day job is an Azure Engineer, Azure RTOS has sparked an interest. This will be a one-off. I'm not planning on taking it to market. I should probably mention both the Arduino and Raspberry Pi have M-Bus shield/hat that physically  connects (M-Bus supports wireless) to the meter. I guess any Azure RTOS compatible device will need M-BUS receiver hardware.

What is the cost of Azure RTOS-compatible hardware? An Audino costs about £30.

What is the cost of Azure RTOS? as I read that it requires licensing?

Thanks

Hi woter 

This library may be of assistance - it's maintained by Microsoft 

Azure RTOS ThreadX - Arduino Reference

Is the IOT_CONFIG_DEVICE_ID and IOT_CONFIG_DEVICE_KEY unique to each physical device, or unique to the project? In other words, would this have to change in every firmware deployed to every physical device, or can it exist once in the firmware and that be uploaded the same onto each physical device?

I've started the course.  I am using an Adafruit ESP32-S2 TFT.  I have selected the board.  When I upload, it says

C:\Users\wflynn\Desktop\Introduction-to-Microsoft-Azure-IoT-master\Section - 2\ESP32___DHT11___Azure_IoT_Hub\ESP32___DHT11___Azure_IoT_Hub.ino:5:10: fatal error: AzureIotHub.h: No such file or directory
5 | #include "AzureIotHub.h"
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
exit status 1

Compilation error: AzureIotHub.h: No such file or directory

If I comment out that include, I get this:

C:\Users\wflynn\Desktop\Introduction-to-Microsoft-Azure-IoT-master\Section - 2\ESP32___DHT11___Azure_IoT_Hub\ESP32___DHT11___Azure_IoT_Hub.ino:6:10: fatal error: Esp32MQTTClient.h: No such file or directory
6 | #include "Esp32MQTTClient.h"
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
exit status 1

Compilation error: Esp32MQTTClient.h: No such file or directory

Is this course out of date?  Or am I missing a library?