Skip to content

tutorial-add-assets.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
333 lines (207 loc) · 19.6 KB

tutorial-add-assets.md

File metadata and controls

333 lines (207 loc) · 19.6 KB
title Tutorial: Add assets
description Tutorial: Add OPC UA assets that publish messages to the MQTT broker in your Azure IoT Operations cluster.
author dominicbetts
ms.author dobett
ms.topic tutorial
ms.date 02/16/2026
ms.custom
ignite-2023
sfi-image-nochange

Tutorial: Add OPC UA assets to your Azure IoT Operations cluster

In this tutorial, you manually add OPC UA assets to your Azure IoT Operations cluster. These assets publish messages to the MQTT broker in your Azure IoT Operations cluster. Typically, an OT user completes these steps.

An asset is a physical device or logical entity that represents a device, a machine, a system, or a process. For example, a physical asset could be a pump, a motor, a tank, or a production line. A logical asset that you define can have properties, stream data points, or generate events.

OPC UA servers are software applications that communicate with assets. OPC UA tags are data points that OPC UA servers expose. OPC UA tags can provide real-time or historical data about the status, performance, quality, or condition of assets.

In this tutorial, you use the operations experience web UI to create your assets. You can also use the Azure CLI to complete some of these tasks.

Prerequisites

An instance of Azure IoT Operations with secure settings enabled deployed in a Kubernetes cluster. To create an instance, use one of the following to deploy Azure IoT Operations:

  • Quickstart: Run Azure IoT Operations in GitHub Codespaces with K3s provides simple instructions to deploy an Azure IoT Operations instance that you can use for the tutorials. These instructions include deploying the connector for OPC UA that's a prerequisite for this tutorial. Then, to enable secure settings follow the steps in Enable secure settings in Azure IoT Operations.
  • Deployment overview provides detailed instructions to deploy an Azure IoT Operations instance on Windows using Azure Kubernetes Service Edge Essentials or Ubuntu using K3s. Follow the steps in the deployment article for a secure settings deployment and to install the latest version.

Important

It's not possible to enable secure settings on the instance you create if you follow the steps in the Quickstart: Run Azure IoT Operations in GitHub Codespaces with K3s article.

After you enable secure settings, the resource group that contains your Azure IoT Operations instance also contains the following resources:

  • An Azure Key Vault instance to store the secrets to synchronize into your Kubernetes cluster.
  • A user-assigned managed identity that Azure IoT Operations uses to access the Azure Key Vault instance.
  • A user-assigned managed identity that Azure IoT Operations components such as data flows can use to uses to connect to cloud endpoints such as Azure Event Hubs.
  • An Azure Device Registry namespace to store your assets and devices.

Ensure that when you configure secure settings that you give your user account permissions to manage secrets with the Key Vault Secrets Officer role.

To sign in to the operations experience web UI, you need a Microsoft Entra ID account with at least contributor permissions for the resource group that contains your Kubernetes - Azure Arc instance. To learn more, see Operations experience web UI.

Unless otherwise noted, you can run the console commands in this tutorial in either a Bash or PowerShell environment.

What problem will we solve?

The data that OPC UA servers expose can have a complex structure and can be difficult to understand. Azure IoT Operations provides a way to model OPC UA assets as tags, events, and properties. This modeling makes it easier to understand the data and to use it in downstream processes such as the MQTT broker and data flows.

The tutorial also explains how to use credentials stored in Azure Key Vault to authenticate to the simulated OPC UA server.

Deploy the OPC PLC simulator

This tutorial uses the OPC PLC simulator to generate sample data. To deploy the OPC PLC simulator:

  1. Download the opc-plc-tutorial-deployment.yaml file from the GitHub repository. To download using the command line, run the following command:

    wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure-Samples/explore-iot-operations/refs/heads/main/samples/quickstarts/opc-plc-tutorial-deployment.yaml -O opc-plc-tutorial-deployment.yaml

  2. Open the opc-plc-tutorial-deployment.yaml file you downloaded in a text editor and change the password for the simulator. The password is set using the --defaultpassword parameter. Make a note of the password value, you need it later. Then, save your changes.

  3. To deploy the OPC PLC simulator to your cluster, run the following command:

    kubectl apply -f opc-plc-tutorial-deployment.yaml

The following snippet shows the YAML file that you applied:

:::code language="yaml" source="~/azure-iot-operations-samples/samples/quickstarts/opc-plc-tutorial-deployment.yaml":::

Establish mutual trust

Before the OPC PLC simulator can send data to the connector for OPC UA, you need to establish mutual trust between them. In this tutorial, the OPC PLC simulator and the connector for OPC UA use self-signed certificates to establish the mutual trust with the connector for OPC UA:

  • The simulator's application instance certificate is stored in the opc-plc-default-application-cert Kubernetes secret.
  • The connector for OPC UA's application instance certificate is stored in the aio-opc-opcuabroker-default-application-cert Kubernetes secret.

Important

In a production environment, use enterprise grade application instance certificates to establish the mutual trust. To learn more, see Configure an enterprise grade application instance certificate.

Add the connector's certificate to the simulator's trust list

Each OPC UA server has its own mechanism for managing the trust list. To add the connector's certificate to the simulator's trust list, run the following commands:

cert=$(kubectl -n azure-iot-operations get secret aio-opc-opcuabroker-default-application-cert -o jsonpath='{.data.tls\.crt}' | base64 -d)
data=$(kubectl create secret generic temp --from-literal=opcuabroker.crt="$cert" --dry-run=client -o jsonpath='{.data}')
kubectl patch secret opc-plc-trust-list -n azure-iot-operations -p "{\"data\": $data}"
$cert = kubectl -n azure-iot-operations get secret aio-opc-opcuabroker-default-application-cert -o jsonpath='{.data.tls\.crt}' | %{ [Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString([Convert]::FromBase64String($_)) }
$data = kubectl create secret generic temp --from-literal=opcuabroker.crt="$cert" --dry-run=client -o jsonpath='{.data}'
kubectl patch secret opc-plc-trust-list -n azure-iot-operations -p "{""data"": $data}"

Add the simulator's certificate to the connector's trust list

Every OPC UA server type has its own mechanism for managing its application instance certificate. To download the simulator's certificate to a file called opcplc-000000.crt, run the following command:

kubectl -n azure-iot-operations get secret opc-plc-default-application-cert -o jsonpath='{.data.tls\.crt}' | base64 -d > opcplc-000000.crt
kubectl -n azure-iot-operations get secret opc-plc-default-application-cert -o jsonpath='{.data.tls\.crt}' | %{ [Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString([Convert]::FromBase64String($_)) } > opcplc-000000.crt

To add the simulator's certificate to the connector's trust list:

  1. Go to the operations experience web UI and sign in with your Microsoft Entra ID credentials.

  2. Select your site. If you're working with a new deployment, there are no sites yet. You can find the cluster you created in the previously by selecting View unassigned instances. In the operations experience, an instance represents a cluster where you deployed Azure IoT Operations.

    :::image type="content" source="media/tutorial-add-assets/site-list.png" lightbox="media/tutorial-add-assets/site-list.png" alt-text="Screenshot that shows the unassigned instances node in the operations experience.":::

  3. Select the instance where you deployed Azure IoT Operations:

    :::image type="content" source="media/tutorial-add-assets/cluster-list.png" lightbox="media/tutorial-add-assets/cluster-list.png" alt-text="Screenshot of Azure IoT Operations instance list.":::

    [!TIP] If you don't see any instances, you might not be in the right Microsoft Entra ID tenant. You can change the tenant from the top right menu in the operations experience.

  4. Select Devices and then Manage certificates and secrets:

    :::image type="content" source="media/tutorial-add-assets/manage-certificates.png" lightbox="media/tutorial-add-assets/manage-certificates.png" alt-text="Screenshot that shows how to find the manage certificates page in the operations experience.":::

  5. On the Certificates and secrets page, select Add new certificate:

    :::image type="content" source="media/tutorial-add-assets/add-certificate.png" lightbox="media/tutorial-add-assets/add-certificate.png" alt-text="Screenshot that shows how to add a certificate to the trust list in the operations experience.":::

  6. Select Upload certificate, select OPC UA trust list as the certificate store, and then choose the opcplc-000000.crt file you downloaded previously. Then select Upload:

    :::image type="content" source="media/tutorial-add-assets/uploaded-certificate.png" lightbox="media/tutorial-add-assets/uploaded-certificate.png" alt-text="Screenshot that shows a successful certificate upload.":::

  7. Select Apply.

The simulator's application instance certificate is now in the connector for OPC UA's trust list.

Add a device

In this step, you use the operations experience to add a device that enables you to connect to the OPC PLC simulator. To add a device:

  1. Select Devices and then Create new:

    :::image type="content" source="media/tutorial-add-assets/devices.png" lightbox="media/tutorial-add-assets/devices.png" alt-text="Screenshot that shows the devices page in the operations experience.":::

  2. Enter opc-ua-connector as the device name and select New on the Microsoft.OpcUa tile:

    :::image type="content" source="media/tutorial-add-assets/add-device.png" lightbox="media/tutorial-add-assets/add-device.png" alt-text="Screenshot that shows how to add a device in the operations experience.":::

  3. Enter the following Microsoft.OpcUa inbound endpoint information:

    Field Value
    Endpoint name opc-ua-connector-0
    OPC UA server URL opc.tcp://opcplc-000000:50000
    User authentication mode Username password

In this tutorial, you add new secrets to your Azure Key Vault instance from the operations experience web UI. The secrets are automatically synced to your Kubernetes cluster:

  1. To add a username reference, select Add reference, then Create new.

  2. Enter plcusername as the secret name and contosouser as the secret value. Then select Apply.

  3. To add a password reference, select Add reference, then Create new.

  4. Enter plcpassword as the secret name and the password you added to the opc-plc-deployment.yaml file as the secret value. Then select Apply.

  5. On the Device details page, select Next to go to the Additional Info page.

  6. On the Add custom property page, you can optionally update or add custom properties to the device. Select Next when you're done.

  7. To save the device definition on the Summary page, select Create.

This configuration deploys a new device called opc-ua-connector with an endpoint called opc-ua-connector-0 to the cluster. You can view the device in the Azure portal or you can use kubectl to view the devices in your Kubernetes cluster:

kubectl get device -n azure-iot-operations

You can see the plcusername and plcpassword secrets in the Azure Key Vault instance in your resource group. The secrets are synced to your Kubernetes cluster where you can see them by using the kubectl get secret -n azure-iot-operations command. You can also see the secrets in the operations experience on the Manage synced secrets page.

Manage your assets

After you select your instance in operations experience, you see the available list of assets on the Assets page. If there are no assets yet, this list is empty:

:::image type="content" source="media/tutorial-add-assets/create-asset-empty.png" lightbox="media/tutorial-add-assets/create-asset-empty.png" alt-text="Screenshot of Azure IoT Operations empty asset list.":::

Create an asset

To create an asset, select Create asset. Then enter the following asset information:

Field Value
Inbound endpoint opc-ua-connector-0
Asset name thermostat
Description A simulated thermostat asset

Remove the existing Custom properties and add the following custom properties. Be careful to use the exact property names, as the Power BI template in a later tutorial queries for them:

Property name Property detail
batch 102
customer Contoso
equipment Boiler
isSpare true
location Seattle

:::image type="content" source="media/tutorial-add-assets/create-asset-details.png" lightbox="media/tutorial-add-assets/create-asset-details.png" alt-text="Screenshot of Azure IoT Operations asset details page.":::

Select Next to go to the Datasets page.

Create a dataset

To create a dataset, select Create dataset. Enter the dataset details shown in the following table:

Field Value
Dataset name thermostat
Destination MQTT
Topic azure-iot-operations/data/thermostat

Select Create and next to save the dataset and go to the Data points page.

Tip

You can select Manage default settings to change the default sampling interval and queue size for each data point.

Create OPC UA data points

Add an OPC UA data point on the Data points page. To add a data point, select Add data point. Enter the data point details shown in the following table:

Data source Data point name
ns=3;s=SpikeData temperature

The data source value here is a specific OPC UA simulator node. The node generates random values within a specified range and also has intermittent spikes.

Select Save.

:::image type="content" source="media/tutorial-add-assets/add-data-point.png" lightbox="media/tutorial-add-assets/add-data-point.png" alt-text="Screenshot of Azure IoT Operations add data point page.":::

Select Next to go to the Event groups page, then select Next to go to the Management groups page, and then Next to go to the Review page.

Review

Review your asset and tag details and make any adjustments you need before you select Create:

:::image type="content" source="media/tutorial-add-assets/review-asset.png" lightbox="media/tutorial-add-assets/review-asset.png" alt-text="Screenshot of Azure IoT Operations create asset review page.":::

This configuration deploys a new asset called thermostat to the cluster. You can also use kubectl to view the assets locally in your cluster:

kubectl get assets.namespace -n azure-iot-operations

View resources in the Azure portal

To view the device and asset you created in the Azure portal, go to Azure Device Registry:

:::image type="content" source="media/tutorial-add-assets/azure-portal.png" lightbox="media/tutorial-add-assets/azure-portal.png" alt-text="Screenshot of Azure portal showing the Azure Device Registry.":::

The portal enables you to view the following Azure Device Registry resources:

  • Assets: You can view the thermostat asset you created in the previous steps.
  • Devices: You can view the opc-ua-connector device you created in the previous steps.
  • Namespaces: You can view the namespace that you created when you deployed Azure IoT Operations. The namespace contains the asset and device you created in the previous steps.
  • Schema Registries: You can view the schema registry that was automatically created when you created your asset.

Verify data is flowing

[!INCLUDE deploy-mqttui]

To verify that the thermostat asset you added is publishing data, view the messages in the azure-iot-operations/data/thermostat topic:

Client $server-generated/0000aaaa-11bb-cccc-dd22-eeeeee333333 received PUBLISH (d0, q0, r0, m0, 'azure-iot-operations/data/thermostat', ... (92 bytes))
azure-iot-operations/data/thermostat {"temperature":{"SourceTimestamp":"2025-02-14T11:27:44.5030912Z","Value":48.17536741017152}}
Client $server-generated/0000aaaa-11bb-cccc-dd22-eeeeee333333 received PUBLISH (d0, q0, r0, m0, 'azure-iot-operations/data/thermostat', ... (90 bytes))
azure-iot-operations/data/thermostat {"temperature":{"SourceTimestamp":"2025-02-14T11:27:45.50333Z","Value":98.22872507286887}}
Client $server-generated/0000aaaa-11bb-cccc-dd22-eeeeee333333 received PUBLISH (d0, q0, r0, m0, 'azure-iot-operations/data/thermostat', ... (92 bytes))
azure-iot-operations/data/thermostat {"temperature":{"SourceTimestamp":"2025-02-14T11:27:46.503381Z","Value":12.533323356430426}}

If there's no data flowing, restart the aio-opc-opc.tcp-1 pod:

  1. Find the name of your aio-opc-opc.tcp-1 pod by using the following command:

    kubectl get pods -n azure-iot-operations

    The name of your pod looks like aio-opc-opc.tcp-1-849dd78866-vhmz6.

  2. Restart the aio-opc-opc.tcp-1 pod by using a command that looks like the following example. Use the aio-opc-opc.tcp-1 pod name from the previous step:

    kubectl delete pod aio-opc-opc.tcp-1-849dd78866-vhmz6 -n azure-iot-operations

The sample tags you added in the previous tutorial generate messages from your asset that look like the following example:

{
    "temperature":{
        "Value":24.86898871648548,
        "SourceTimestamp":"2025-04-25T14:50:07.195274Z"
    }
}

How did we solve the problem?

In this tutorial, you added a device and then defined an asset and tags. The assets and tags model data from the OPC UA server to make the data easier to use in an MQTT broker and other downstream processes.

You used credentials stored in Azure Key Vault to authenticate to the OPC UA server. This approach is more secure than hardcoding credentials in your asset definition.

You use the thermostat asset you defined in the next tutorial.

Clean up resources

If you're continuing on to the next tutorial, keep all of your resources.

[!INCLUDE tidy-resources]

Next step

Tutorial: Send messages from your asset to the cloud using a data flow.