What is Azure Digital Twins?
Azure Digital Twins is a platform service for creating digital representations of physical environments. The service models relationships between devices, sensors, spaces, and processes as a knowledge graph and enables synchronization with the physical world through connected IoT data sources.
Core Features
- Modeling with DTDL (Digital Twins Definition Language) for typed objects and relationships
- Prebuilt, open-source DTDL ontologies for industries such as smart buildings, smart cities, or energy grids
- Connectivity to IoT data sources, including via Azure IoT Hub and Azure Functions
- Graph-based queries for navigating complex environments
- Event routing for reactive architectures with Event Grid
- Visualization through Azure Digital Twins Explorer and 3D Scenes Studio
Typical Use Cases
- Smart Buildings: modeling buildings with rooms, sensors, and equipment for optimized facility management
- Industry 4.0: digital representations of production lines for simulation and optimization of manufacturing processes
- Infrastructure: monitoring utility networks such as electricity, water, or telecommunications
Benefits
- Open modeling language based on JSON-LD standards
- Integration into the Azure IoT and event ecosystem
- Scalable from single devices to very large twin graphs
- Can be operated in European Azure regions
Integration with innFactory
As a Microsoft Solutions Partner, innFactory supports you with Azure Digital Twins: from modeling your environment to IoT integration and production operations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Digital Twin?
A Digital Twin is a virtual representation of a physical environment. Azure Digital Twins models relationships between objects, spaces, sensors, and processes as a knowledge graph.
What modeling language does Azure Digital Twins use?
Azure Digital Twins uses DTDL (Digital Twins Definition Language), a JSON-LD based language for defining models, properties, and relationships. Prebuilt DTDL ontologies are available for specific industries, such as smart buildings or energy grids.
How does Digital Twins integrate with IoT Hub?
IoT Hub typically sends telemetry data via Azure Functions or other integration services to Azure Digital Twins, which updates the knowledge graph. Changes can be propagated to downstream systems via Event Grid.
What does Azure Digital Twins cost?
Billing follows a pay-as-you-go model based on operations: queries, reads, and writes are charged separately. Actual costs depend heavily on the size of the environment and query frequency; check the official pricing page for current rates.
Note: All product information on this page has been compiled with care, but is provided without guarantee and may be outdated or incomplete. Cloud services evolve rapidly — features, pricing, SLAs, and availability change frequently. Authoritative and up-to-date information can only be found on the official product page of Azure (official documentation). This page does not represent an offer by Azure.
