Today, Microsoft and Litmus are excited to announce a new integration between Azure IoT Operations and Litmus Edge, bringing unprecedented speed, automation, and governance to industrial data onboarding and modeling. Through a Litmus connector based on the open-source Akri framework, customers can now achieve real-time devices and assets discoverability, seamless onboarding, and Azure-native representation of Litmus Edge data, unlocking faster time to value and dramatically improved productivity for both OT and IT teams.
This collaboration bridges the long-standing divide between operational technology (OT) systems and cloud IT environments. By natively aligning edge assets, data models, and governance across the stack, enterprises can scale industrial data solutions with confidence and without the traditional integration of pain.
Manufacturers often struggle with slow, manual onboarding as they connect PLCs, sensors, and machines from many vendors. Each integration requires custom configuration, tribal knowledge, and repeated effort at every site. Schema mapping is often done by hand, and device details must be recreated in cloud tools. These delays hold back initiatives like predictive maintenance, energy optimization, and OEE analytics. Enterprises need a consistent way to discover assets, build accurate data models, and move clean data into Azure services without friction.
Azure IoT Operations and Litmus Edge now deliver a unified and automated approach to industrial data integration. The Litmus Akri Connector links Litmus Edge with Azure IoT Operations so devices, schemas, and metadata flow smoothly from the edge into Azure. The result is a modern, scalable pattern that supports multi-site operations and keeps both OT and IT aligned on one operational model.
Unlike traditional ingestion pipelines that push raw telemetry into the cloud, Azure IoT Operations automatically generates structured, schema-aware assets from Litmus Edge. Every device, sensor, and tag is represented as a first-class managed object in the Azure Namespace and Azure Resource Manager (ARM).
This enables:
Consistent governance and policy enforcement
Auditability and lineage tracking across device lifecycles
Standardized data models that can be reused across analytics, AI, and operational systems
The result is a unified view of industrial data that accelerates downstream use cases while eliminating brittle custom modeling efforts.
Through the new Akri-based Litmus Connector, Azure IoT Operations provides automated discovery and frictionless onboarding of Litmus-connected devices. When Litmus Edge detects a new PLC, sensor, or controller, it becomes visible to Azure and can be onboarded with a single click; no manual mapping, scripting, or custom pipelines required.
Customers benefit from:
Massive reductions in deployment and setup time
Eliminated configuration errors
Faster OT–IT collaboration and iteration cycles
This fully automated integration drastically shortens the path from device connection to cloud-ready data.
Azure IoT Operations introduces powerful in-line data processing capabilities that allow customers to enrich and shape industrial data before it reaches analytics platforms like Microsoft Fabric.
With Azure IoT Operations, you can:
Filter and transform telemetry at the edge
Apply rules and trigger alerts
Route data to one or many destinations
Enrich messages and harmonize formats
This flexibility ensures that IT teams get the right data in the right format, while OT teams maintain a stable and predictable edge environment.
The Digital Operations Experience (DOE) provides a centralized Azure interface for managing everything Litmus-origin:
Industrial assets modeled from Litmus Edge
Data flows and routing configurations
Real-time telemetry visualization and monitoring
Policy management and lifecycle oversight
DOE brings together OT context and IT governance in a single cloud experience, reducing operational overhead and giving enterprises a scalable, consistent way to manage industrial data pipelines.
The new architecture connects the Litmus industrial data platform at the edge with Azure IoT Operations, Azure Arc, and cloud analytics services. Device discovery, schema modeling, and dataflows operate in a unified way.
Watch a walkthrough of discovery, one-click onboarding, Azure-native asset creation, dataflow to Fabric and real-time visualization. Watch the demo on YouTube!
The demo walks through
Create and Register a Device
Azure IoT Operations connects to Litmus Edge through the Akri-based Litmus Connector. A new device is created using Litmus Edge metadata with minimal steps.
Import Discovered Devices and Assets
Discovered assets appear in DOE. Azure builds the cloud asset with the right structure and schema.
Build a Dataflow to Microsoft Fabric
You select the Litmus-managed asset, define the route, and send data into Microsoft Fabric. This stream becomes the base for live dashboards and analytics.
Visualize Real-Time Data in Microsoft Fabric
Microsoft Fabric tables populate with incoming edge data. Copilot helps build visualizations and OEE-style KPIs.
The combined strength of Litmus Edge and Azure IoT Operations significantly compresses the time, effort, and expertise required to operationalize industrial data at scale. With automated onboarding, Azure-native modeling, and edge-to-cloud governance, enterprises can move from pilot to production faster, cleaner, and with far fewer integration risks.
This collaboration represents a major step forward in enabling OT and IT teams to work together. It reduces onboarding time from hours to minutes and establishes a scalable path for analytics, AI, and digital transformation. This is how Microsoft and Litmus accelerate your journey to smart manufacturing. To learn more, visit our Marketplace listing or connect with our team for a deeper conversation.