Blob Storage Connector

Archive device telemetry in Azure Blob Storage for cost-effective, massively scalable object storage. Store unlimited data with hot, cool, and archive tiers for optimized cost based on access frequency.

What is Blob Storage

Azure Blob Storage is Microsoft’s object storage solution for the cloud. It is optimized for storing massive amounts of unstructured data — including IoT telemetry, log files, images, and backup data.

Key Features:

Unlimited Scale: Store petabytes of telemetry data with no capacity planning required.

Access Tiers: Hot (frequent), Cool (infrequent), and Archive (rarely accessed) for cost optimization.

Lifecycle Management: Automated rules to transition blobs between tiers or delete after retention period.

Immutable Storage: WORM (Write Once, Read Many) for regulatory compliance and data integrity.

Analytics Integration: Direct access from Azure Synapse, Databricks, and Power BI for analytics.

How it Works

When the Blob Storage connector is enabled, /IOTCONNECT™ writes telemetry data as blobs to your storage container:

Device sends telemetry → /IOTCONNECT™ receives and validates data.

Data buffered → Records are batched for efficient blob writes.

Blob created → Data is written to your container with path: container/year/month/day/deviceId/data.json

Analytics-ready → Query directly from Azure Synapse, Databricks, or mount in Data Lake.

User Manual

Step 1: Navigate to Connector Settings

Go to Settings > Configuration > Live Data Streaming in the /IOTCONNECT™ portal.

Step 2: Enable Blob Storage

Find the Blob Storage connector card and toggle the switch to ON (green).

Step 3: Select Data Types

Choose which data to archive: Telemetry, Faulty, Diagnostics, Command History.

Step 4: Run ARM Template

Click the ARM template link. This deploys:

A Storage Account with Blob service enabled

Container with hierarchical namespace for partitioning

Service Principal with Storage Blob Data Contributor role

Lifecycle management policies for tier transitions

Step 5: Confirm Subscription ID

Subscription ID auto-populates after deployment.

Step 6: Save

Click Save. Telemetry begins archiving to your Blob Storage container.

Use Cases

Long-term Archival: Store years of telemetry at pennies per GB with Archive tier.

Data Lake Source: Feed Azure Data Lake, Synapse, or Databricks for big data analytics.

Regulatory Compliance: Use immutable storage with retention policies for audit requirements.

ML Training Data: Accumulate historical telemetry for training machine learning models.

Disaster Recovery: Geo-redundant storage for backup and disaster recovery of critical IoT data.

ⓘ NOTE

Use lifecycle management to automatically move data from Hot to Cool to Archive tiers based on age. This can reduce storage costs by up to 80% for older telemetry data.