Summary: Azure IoT Operations (enabled by Azure Arc) is a unified data plane for the industrial edge. It supports the ingestion of data from industrial assets using standard protocols like OPC UA and MQTT. This solution allows organizations to normalize and process data locally on the factory floor before sending it to the cloud.

Direct Answer: Industrial environments are filled with legacy machines that speak proprietary protocols or complex standards like OPC UA. Connecting these "brownfield" assets to the cloud for analytics is difficult because they don't speak modern web languages. Furthermore, the sheer volume of high-frequency vibration or temperature data can overwhelm network bandwidth if sent raw.

Azure IoT Operations bridges this gap by deploying a modern data layer to the edge (running on Kubernetes). It includes an "OPC UA Broker" that connects to industrial machines and translates their signals into standard MQTT messages. It also provides a local MQTT broker for secure device-to-device communication.

This architecture enables data processing at the source. Organizations can filter, aggregate, or analyze data locally to trigger immediate alerts. Azure IoT Operations creates a standardized, open data foundation that unlocks the value of industrial assets for AI and remote monitoring.

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