AZ-220 Interview Questions

Well, preparing for the exam interview is equally important as preparing for the exam because it is the last step towards achieving what you want. Talking about the AZ-220 exam interview, you must know that you not only require technical expertise in the field but also the confidence and ability to portray the answers well. Hence, we have brought for you the set of frequent and the best possible AZ-220 interview questions and answers that will help you understand the way of answering the questions and prepare well for the interview. Before that, let’s take a brief about the roles and responsibilities of an IoT developer.

The Microsoft Azure IoT Developer(AZ-220) exam is accountable for the coding that is required to build and manage the cloud and the edge portion of an IoT solution. Alongside, the IoT Developer also sets up the physical devices.

The roles of an IoT developer are as follows-

Executing designs for IoT solutions, including device topology, connectivity, debugging, and security.
Deploying containers and configures device networking.
Implementing designs for solutions to manage data pipelines, including monitoring and data transformation as it relates to IoT.
Working with data engineers and other stakeholders to ensure successful business integration.
Implementing Azure services, including data storage options, data analysis, data processing, and platform-as-a-service options.
Recognizing Azure IoT service configuration settings within the code portion of an IoT solution and perform specific IoT coding tasks in at least one Azure-supported language, including C#, Node, C, or Python.

Now, let’s get into interview questions.

Advanced Interview Questions

What is Azure IoT and why is it important?

Azure IoT is a collection of Microsoft Azure cloud services that enables the secure and reliable connection, management, and ingestion of data from IoT devices. It provides a set of tools and services for connecting, monitoring, and controlling IoT devices, as well as for analyzing and visualizing the data they generate.

It is important because it allows organizations to easily and securely connect and manage large numbers of IoT devices, and to extract valuable insights from the data they generate. This can be used to improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, and create new business opportunities. Additionally, Azure IoT provides a scalable and secure platform for IoT solutions, which is essential for organizations that are looking to deploy large-scale IoT projects.

What is the Azure IoT Hub and what are its key features?

Azure IoT Hub is a fully managed service provided by Microsoft Azure that enables secure and reliable communication between IoT devices and a cloud solution. It acts as a central message hub that allows devices to send and receive messages with the cloud.

Key features of Azure IoT Hub are:

Device management: It enables the remote management and monitoring of millions of connected IoT devices.
Security: It provides secure communication between devices and the cloud using per-device authentication and communication encryption.
Scalability: It can handle millions of devices and billions of messages, with built-in auto-scaling capabilities.
Data ingestion and processing: It provides bidirectional communication for sending commands to devices and receiving telemetry from devices.
Integration: It can be integrated with other Azure services like Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Functions, and Azure Machine Learning.
Protocol support: It supports multiple protocols including MQTT, HTTP, and AMQP, enabling devices to communicate with the cloud regardless of the protocol they use.
Global scale: Azure IoT Hub is available globally in multiple regions, ensuring high availability and low latency.

Overall, Azure IoT Hub provides a reliable and secure communication platform for IoT solutions, allowing organizations to easily manage, process, and analyze data from IoT devices at scale.

How does Azure IoT Hub provide security and data protection for IoT devices?

Azure IoT Hub provides security and data protection for IoT devices through a variety of mechanisms. These include:

Authentication: Azure IoT Hub uses the X.509 certificate-based authentication to ensure that only authorized devices can connect to the IoT hub. Devices must present a valid certificate before they are granted access to the IoT hub.
Authorization: Once a device is authenticated, Azure IoT Hub uses role-based access control (RBAC) to determine which actions the device is allowed to perform. This ensures that devices can only access the resources they are authorized to access.
Data encryption: Azure IoT Hub uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) to encrypt all communication between devices and the IoT hub. This ensures that data is protected while in transit and cannot be intercepted by unauthorized parties.
Device management: Azure IoT Hub provides device management capabilities that allow administrators to remotely manage and update devices. This includes the ability to remotely reboot, factory reset, or update the firmware on a device.
Data retention: Azure IoT Hub allows administrators to set data retention policies to ensure that data is only kept for a certain period of time before it is automatically deleted. This helps to protect against data breaches and ensures that data is only kept for as long as it is needed.
Compliance: Azure IoT Hub is compliant with various regulatory standards such as SOC2, ISO 27001, and PCI DSS, which provides an additional layer of security and data protection for IoT devices.

Overall, Azure IoT Hub provides a robust security and data protection solution for IoT devices, allowing organizations to securely connect and manage their IoT devices while maintaining compliance with regulatory standards.

What are some common protocols used in IoT and how are they supported in Azure IoT Hub?

The Internet of Things (IoT) involves the use of various communication protocols to connect devices to each other and to the cloud. Some of the common protocols used in IoT are:

MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport): It is a lightweight publish-subscribe protocol that is widely used in IoT applications for device-to-cloud and cloud-to-device communication. Azure IoT Hub supports MQTT over secure WebSockets.
AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol): It is an open standard for messaging that provides guaranteed message delivery and bi-directional communication between devices and the cloud. Azure IoT Hub supports AMQP over secure WebSockets.
HTTP/HTTPS: These protocols are widely used for RESTful web services and can be used for device-to-cloud communication in IoT solutions. Azure IoT Hub supports HTTP and HTTPS for sending device-to-cloud messages.
CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol): It is a lightweight protocol designed for IoT devices with limited resources, such as memory and processing power. Azure IoT Hub supports CoAP over DTLS (Datagram Transport Layer Security) for secure communication.

By supporting these protocols, Azure IoT Hub provides a flexible and scalable communication infrastructure for IoT solutions. It enables devices to send data to the cloud for processing and storage, and receive commands and configuration updates from the cloud.

How can you implement device-to-cloud and cloud-to-device communication using Azure IoT Hub?

Implementing device-to-cloud and cloud-to-device communication using Azure IoT Hub involves several steps.

First, you will need to create an IoT Hub in the Azure portal. This will serve as the central hub for all communication between devices and the cloud.
Next, you will need to register your devices with the IoT Hub. This can be done through the Azure portal or through the Azure IoT SDKs. Each device will need to be assigned a unique device ID and will be given a set of security credentials to authenticate with the IoT Hub.
Once your devices are registered, you can begin sending data from your devices to the cloud. This can be done using the Azure IoT SDKs, which provide libraries for various programming languages and platforms. The data can be sent as messages or events, depending on the requirements of your application.
In the cloud, you can process and analyze the data using Azure services such as Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Event Grid, or Azure Functions. These services can be used to trigger actions or send messages back to the devices based on the data received.
To send messages or commands from the cloud to the devices, you can use the Azure IoT SDKs or the Azure IoT Hub Device Twin feature. This allows you to send messages or commands to specific devices or groups of devices based on their device IDs.
To ensure secure communication between devices and the cloud, Azure IoT Hub uses various security features such as per-device authentication, device-to-cloud encryption, and cloud-to-device authentication.

Overall, implementing device-to-cloud and cloud-to-device communication using Azure IoT Hub involves creating an IoT Hub, registering devices, sending data from devices to the cloud, processing and analyzing data in the cloud, and sending messages or commands back to the devices.

What is the Azure IoT Edge and how does it differ from IoT Hub?

Azure IoT Edge is a cloud-based service that allows you to run artificial intelligence (AI), Azure services, and custom logic directly on IoT devices. It allows you to move processing and analytics closer to the data source, reducing latency, improving efficiency, and conserving bandwidth.

IoT Hub, on the other hand, is a fully managed service that acts as the central message hub for bi-directional communication between IoT devices and an Azure solution back end. It provides device identity and management, device-to-cloud communication, and cloud-to-device communication services.

The key difference between Azure IoT Edge and IoT Hub is the location where processing and analytics are performed. IoT Edge devices run the Azure IoT Edge runtime, which enables them to run Azure services, custom logic, and third-party services directly on the device. IoT Hub provides communication services between IoT devices and an Azure solution back end but does not perform any processing or analytics on the device itself.

In summary, Azure IoT Edge is designed to run processing and analytics directly on IoT devices, while IoT Hub provides a central message hub for communication between IoT devices and an Azure solution back end.

How can you use Azure Stream Analytics in an IoT solution?

Azure Stream Analytics is a real-time data streaming and analytics service provided by Microsoft Azure. It can be used in an IoT (Internet of Things) solution to process and analyze large amounts of data generated by IoT devices in real-time. Here is an example of how Azure Stream Analytics can be used in an IoT solution:

Data Collection: IoT devices such as sensors, cameras, and gateways collect data and send it to the cloud. This data can be in the form of sensor readings, images, videos, or other types of data.
Data Ingestion: The data collected by the IoT devices is ingested into Azure Stream Analytics. This can be done using various protocols such as HTTP, MQTT, or AMQP.
Data Processing: Once the data is ingested into Azure Stream Analytics, it can be processed and analyzed in real-time. The service allows for the creation of complex queries and transformations on the data, such as filtering, aggregations, and joins.
Data Output: The processed data can then be output to various destinations such as Azure Event Hubs, Azure Blob Storage, or Azure SQL Database. This allows for further analysis or integration with other services.
Data Visualization: The processed data can be visualized using tools such as Power BI, providing insights and actionable information in real-time.
Real-time Alerts: Azure Stream Analytics can be used to set up real-time alerts based on specific conditions. For example, if a sensor reading exceeds a certain threshold, an alert can be sent to an operator or trigger a specific action.

In summary, Azure Stream Analytics allows for real-time processing and analysis of large amounts of data generated by IoT devices, providing insights and actionable information in near real-time. This enables organizations to quickly respond to changing conditions and make data-driven decisions.

How can you manage and monitor IoT devices using Azure IoT Hub and Azure IoT Central?

Azure IoT Hub and Azure IoT Central are both cloud-based solutions that provide a range of tools and services to manage and monitor IoT devices.

Azure IoT Hub allows you to securely manage and monitor millions of connected devices and interact with them through cloud-to-device and device-to-cloud communication. It provides a number of device management features such as device identity management, device telemetry data collection, and firmware updates.

Azure IoT Central is a fully managed SaaS solution for managing IoT devices at scale. It provides an easy-to-use web interface for device management, monitoring and rules engine for triggering actions based on device telemetry data. It also includes a dashboard for visualizing device data, as well as alerting and reporting capabilities.

Both solutions allow you to monitor the health and status of your IoT devices by collecting telemetry data and providing visibility into performance metrics. This can help you identify and troubleshoot issues quickly and ensure that your IoT devices are running smoothly. Additionally, you can use Azure IoT Central or IoT Hub to remotely manage your devices by issuing firmware updates, configure settings and manage device identities.

Overall, Azure IoT Hub and IoT Central offer a comprehensive set of tools and services for managing and monitoring IoT devices, making it easier for organizations to build, deploy, and operate IoT solutions at scale.

How can you incorporate machine learning into an IoT solution using Azure Cognitive Services?

Incorporating machine learning into an IoT solution using Azure Cognitive Services involves several steps.

First, data needs to be collected from IoT devices and sent to the Azure cloud. This can be done using various protocols such as MQTT or HTTP.
Once the data is in the cloud, it needs to be stored in a data storage solution such as Azure Blob Storage or Azure SQL Database. This data can then be used to train machine learning models.
Azure Cognitive Services offers a variety of pre-trained machine learning models that can be used for different tasks such as image recognition, natural language processing, and speech recognition. These models can be integrated into the IoT solution by using their corresponding APIs.
After the models have been integrated, they can be used to process and analyze the data collected from the IoT devices. For example, image recognition models can be used to identify objects in images, natural language processing models can be used to extract meaning from text, and speech recognition models can be used to transcribe audio.
The results of the analysis can then be sent back to the IoT devices or used to trigger specific actions. For example, if a machine learning model detects a malfunction in an IoT device, it can trigger an alert or send a notification to a maintenance technician.
Finally, the machine learning models can be continuously trained and updated as more data is collected, allowing the IoT solution to improve over time.

In summary, Azure Cognitive Services provides a way to easily integrate machine learning into IoT solutions by providing pre-trained models, APIs, and the ability to store and process large amounts of data. This allows for the analysis and action on the data collected from IoT devices to be automated and improved over time.

What are some best practices for designing, deploying and managing an IoT solution on Azure?

Designing, deploying, and managing an IoT solution on Azure requires careful planning and consideration of several key factors to ensure the solution is secure, scalable, and efficient. Here are some best practices for designing, deploying and managing an IoT solution on Azure:

Security: Ensure that the solution has proper security measures in place, such as encryption for device-to-cloud and cloud-to-device communication, proper authentication for devices and users, and secure storage of sensitive data.
Scalability: Design the solution to be scalable, so it can handle increasing amounts of data and device traffic. This can be achieved by using technologies like Azure IoT Hub and Azure IoT Edge.
Monitoring and management: Implement a robust monitoring and management system to track the performance and health of devices and the overall solution. Azure IoT Hub and Azure IoT Central provide tools for monitoring, management and maintenance of IoT devices and solutions.
Data management: Ensure that the solution has a proper data management system to handle the large amounts of data generated by IoT devices. This includes storing and processing data, as well as analyzing and visualizing it.
Integration with other Azure services: Consider integrating the IoT solution with other Azure services, such as Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Functions, and Azure Machine Learning, to add additional capabilities and enhance the overall solution.
Device management: Implement proper device management procedures to keep devices updated, secure, and compliant with industry standards.
Reliability and availability: Design the solution with reliability and availability in mind, so it can withstand failures and continue to function even in the event of a failure.

By following these best practices, organizations can ensure that their IoT solution on Azure is secure, scalable, and efficient, and can effectively meet their IoT requirements.

Basic Interview Questions

What are the major roles of Windows Azure?

The roles of Windows Azure are web role, worker role and virtual machine role.

What do you mean by IoT?

IoT stands for Internet of Things which is a network of physical objects or people that are referred to as “things” that are combined with software, electronics, network, and sensors which ultimately allow these objects to collect and exchange data. The purpose of IoT is to extend the connectivity of the internet from standard devices like computers, mobile, tablets to comparatively dumb devices.

What are the types of IoT?

IoT are of two types:

Internet of Things-responsible for creating a business that uses gadgets to perform a task.
Industrial Internet of Things-responsible for creating business in an industry like agriculture.

What are the basic components of IoT?

There are four fundamental components of IoT that are given as follows:

Devices: They are the key components that help in collecting live data from the surrounding environment. This data can be a simple temperature monitoring sensor or maybe in the form of a video feed.
Connectivity: The collected data is further sent to a cloud infrastructure. The sensors ought to be connected to the cloud with the use of various communication mediums. These communication channels are inclusive of mobile or satellite networks, WI-FI, Bluetooth, WAN, etc.
Data Processing: Once the data gets to the cloud, the software product performs the processing of data. This process can be anything for example checking the temperature, reading on devices like heaters etc.
User Interface: The information is made available to the end-user by triggering alarms on their phones or sending them notifications through text messages or email.

Which common Iot applications are you aware of?

Some of the most common IoT applications are as follows:

Smart Thermostats- This helps in knowing your usage pattern and hence save resources on heating bills.
Connected Cars- IoT helps companies in handling billing, insurance, and related stuff automatically.
Parking Sensors- IoT technology also helps users in identifying the real-time availability of parking spaces on their phones.
Connect Health- This facilitates real-time monitoring of health and patient care. It helps in improved medical decision-making based on patient data.
Activity Trackers- Helps to capture heart rate patterns, activity levels, calorie expenditure, and skin temperature on your wrist.
Smart Outlets- Enables to remotely turn any device on or off along with allowance to track a device’s energy level and get custom notifications directly into one’s smartphone.

How is IoT system beneficial?

The major benefits of IoT technology are:

Technical Optimization: IoT technology helps in improving techniques and then making them better. For instance, with IoT a manufacturer can analyze techniques to improve their design in order to make them efficient.
Reduced Waste: IoT provides real-time information leading to effective decision-making & managing of resources.
Improved Customer Engagement: IoT allows one to improve the customer’s experience by detecting problems and improving the process.
Improved Data Collection: Traditional data collection has its drawbacks and its design for passive use. So, IoT facilitates immediate action on data.

How would you define MicroPython?

MicroPython is an implementation of Python that includes a small subset of its standard library. Moreover it can be optimized to run on the ModeMCU microcontroller.

How is WSN different from IoT?

WSN is a network of motes that are fashioned to look at or monitor bodily parameters of desired utility. For example screen temp-humidity or maybe soil moisture. On the other side, IoT is a community of bodily objects that are managed and monitored over the internet. Moreover, IoT is about M2M, that is more than bringing smartness into daily gadgets.

Can you name some widely used IoT protocols?

Some widely used IoT protocols are as follows:

XMPP
AMQP
MQTT protocol
WiFi
Simple Text Oriented Messaging Protocol(STOMP)
Very Simple Control Protocol (VSCP)
Data Distribution Service (DDS)

What does data in IoT refer to?

Well, data in IoT refers to the information which is collected by the devices installed at any building.

Can you name some IoT softwares?

Some IoT softwares are:

Microsoft Azure
Blockchain
Windows IoT
Predix
Bluemix
Node-RED.

What do you know about IoT testing?

IoT testing is the testing used to check IoT devices. There is an increasing need to deliver faster and better services these days. The aim of this is to provide insights and also control various interconnected IoT devices. Thus, IoT testing framework is really important.

What is the role of network in IoT?

The role of networks in IoT is quite important as it is responsible for providing a practical and smart system so as to make strong infrastructure. Hence, the network offers scalability to help in the coordination of devices with other lines with the Internet.

Can you name some IoT testing tools?

IoT testing tools are divided as follows:

Software: Wireshark and Tcpdump.
Hardware: JTAG Dongle, Software Defined Radio, and Digital Storage Oscilloscope.

What are the drawbacks of IoT?

Some of the drawbacks of IoT are:

Security
Privacy
Flexibility
Complexity
Compliance

What is time series insights in Azure?

Azure Time Series Insights is a service that has fully managed analytics, storage, and visualization. This makes it simple to explore and analyze billions of IoT events at the same time. Also, it provides a global view of data, which helps in quickly validating IoT solutions and avoiding costly downtime to mission-critical devices.

How can one register a new device in the IoT hub?

For registering a new device in IoT hub. The following steps are to be followed:

In the IoT hub navigation menu, open IoT Devices and select New to add a device in your IoT hub.
In Create a device, provide a name for your new device and Save. This action creates a device identity for your IoT hub.
Once the device is created, open the device from the list in the IoT devices pane. Also, copy the Primary Connection String to use it later.

What are the suitable databases for IoT?

Some such databases for IoT are:

RethinkDB
MongoDB
influx DB
Apache Cassandra
Sqlite

What does ASA do?

Azure Stream Analytics(ASA) provides a highly structured query syntax for analysis of data in both, the cloud and on IoT Edge devices.

What do you know about Azure cloud service?

Azure Cloud Services provide the opportunity to convey multiple web applications in Azure along with specifying various parts for the dissemination of management and the permission for flexible scaling in an application. Holistically, a particular cloud service contains web parts and specialist parts in some cases along with their own specific application documents and design.

Which industries does IoT benefit?

The industries that benefit from IoT the most are healthcare, automotive, public transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, utilities and energy, environmental, smart cities, smart homes and consumer devices.

What is Azure Diagnostics?

Azure Diagnostics is an Azure API that is helpful in collecting diagnostics data from applications that are implemented on Azure. Azure Diagnostics has to be enabled for various cloud service roles in order to ensure the activation of verbose monitoring.

What are the important components of the Azure platform?

There are three significant components of Microsoft Azure. These are Compute, Fabric, and Storage that appear as Azure Compute, Azure AppFabric, and Azure Storage respectively.

How will you create an IoT Hub using Azure portal?

For creating an IoT hub, one must follow the following steps:

Sign in to the Azure portal.
From the Azure homepage, select the + Create a resource button, and then enter IoT Hub in the Search the Marketplace field.
Select IoT Hub from the search results, and then select Create.
On the Basics tab, complete the fields as follows:
- Subscription
- Resource Group
- Region
- IoT Hub Name
Select Next: Networking to continue creating your hub. Choose the endpoints that can connect to your IoT Hub. You can select the default setting Public endpoint (all networks) or choose Public endpoint (selected IP ranges), or Private endpoint. Accept the default setting for this example.
Select Next: Management to continue creating your hub. You can accept the default settings here.
Select Next: Tags to continue to the next screen. Tags are name/value pairs. You can assign the same tag to multiple resources and resource groups to categorize resources and consolidate billing. For more information, see Use tags to organize your Azure resources.
Select Next: Review + create to review your choices. You see something similar to this screen, but with the values, you selected when creating the hub.
Select Create to create your new hub. Creating the hub takes a few minutes

What is the full form of ADT?

ADT stands for Azure Digital Twins

What is an embedded system in an IoT device?

An embedded system is a composition of hardware, software, and firmware that is configured for a particular purpose. It’s a small computer that can be embedded in mechanical or electrical systems, such as automobiles, medical devices, smart speakers, industrial equipment or digital watches. Generally it is made up of a processor, memory, power supply and communication ports and also includes the software which is necessary to carry out the operations.

What hardware systems does embedded system contain?

An embedded system contains the following hardware-

Sensor or other input device
Memory
Digital-to-analog converter
Actuator
Analog-to-digital converter
Processor

What is a sensor?

A sensor is a physical object that responds to input from its surrounding environment. The information that a sensor collects transmits electronically to other components in an embedded system. There it converts and then undergoes processes as necessary. The IoT industry supports various sensors, including those that can measure light, heat, motion, pressure, proximity, smoke, temperature, air quality or other environmental conditions. Some of the IoT devices even contain multiple sensors to capture a mix of data.

Give examples of some sensors used in agriculture?

Some such examples are as follows:

Chemical
Electromagnetic
Airflow
Acoustic
Electrochemical
Humidity

What is the full form of BLE Protocol?

BLE stands for Bluetooth Low Energy protocol for internet of things.