How do I send data from Azure IoT Central to Azure SQL without Stream Analytics?

Question

In reference to this Stack Overflow question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55062045/azure-stream-analytics-job-expensive-for-small-data

Stream Analytics seems incredibly expensive for sending small batches of data every so often, and looks like it's designed for more real-time use. I have an application that would like to send small batches of sensor data every hour, and Stream Analytics seems to be impractical for this use.

I would like to know how to continuously forward data from IoT Central to an Azure SQL database that would be suitable for this application.

Answer 1

Possibly one of the cheapest and most effective ways of doing is, is to create an Azure Function on a provisioning plan. The Azure Function can forward the telemetry to Azure SQL, using the Azure SQL output binding.

To send data to your Function, you have different options. All of those options start with the Data Export feature in IoT Central.

At the export, you need to add a destination. This is where you have multiple options. Your Azure Function can listen to a number of triggers. Storage, Service Bus Topic/Queue, Event Hub and Webhook are all good choices, but since you mentioned cost, go with WebHook. You can create an Azure Function with an HTTP Trigger. Once deployed, you can use the URL of the function in your webhook URL.

You will need to write some code to transfor the incoming message, to an item in Azure SQL.

Alternatively, you could look into Logic Apps.