Why use Digital Twins for IoT driven system or application

Question

Hi,
I understand how Digital Twins form a model of a physical or real world system that help us with things such as predictive maintenance and so on.
For some reason, I cant figure out how a digital twin would add any benefits to an application that already uses data from IoT devices which are routed by an IoT Hub to corresponding Event Gris, Functions and so on. When it comes to displaying the data, cant it be the data of the IoT device directly or its last data package why is there a need or what are the benefits of using digital twins here?
Is it so I can use a model of the same IoT device to "simulate" the interaction of X such devices with my business logic?

Answer 1

Hello @Michael Schichta Thanks for posting this interesting question!

As the topic is very broad, below are a few get started and helpful links, I hope this helps with your initial query!

how a digital twin would add any benefits to an application that already uses data from IoT devices ....

Live Execution: With digital twins, organizations help cut costs in maintenance & reduction of defects & faster release cycles. It allows you to query models for insights with a wide range of conditions & relationships.
Input from IoT and business systems: You can easily connect assets such as IoT and IoT Edge devices, as well as existing business systems such as ERP and CRM, to Azure Digital Twins to drive the live execution environment.
Output to Time Series Insights, storage, and analytics: Data in the azure digital twin model can be downstream to additional analytics & storage. Azure Digital Twins is already being used by a broad set of customers and partners. Ansys Twin Builder: Bentley iTwin: And many more customer success stories

When it comes to displaying the data, cant it be the data of the IoT device directly ...

ADT Connect assets such as IoT devices and existing business systems. Manufacturing Industry: It will be a great help to have insight into the usage cycle of parts of machinery. Hotel Industry: To know the devices in a room & a list of devices that should be serviced.

Is it so I can use a model of the same IoT device to "simulate"

Please follow this document:Send simulated IoT data, To test your new ingress function, use the device simulator from Connect an end-to-end solution.

Please comment in the below section for further help in this matter, happy to help!