Azure IoT Hub sample, integration of DPS and FOTA not working

[Actif]

Hello Nordic, 

I hope this message finds you well. We tried to keep everything in the same ticket to avoid duplication. Unfortunately, you may have missed our intervention on this thread.

Our team is currently working with the Azure IoT Hub + DPS + FOTA sample that your team provided. We appreciate your efforts in sharing this resource. However, we are encountering some challenges in implementing it effectively.

We have diligently followed the sample, particularly concerning using DPS as the provisioning point and FOTA for firmware updates. However, the current documentation doesn't provide the detail necessary to replicate the process successfully. A lot of the documentation is written using IoT Hub + FOTA, but there is a lot of ambiguity about DPS + FOTA.

Therefore, we kindly request that you confirm if someone from your team has successfully tested this sample, and if so, could you provide a step-by-step guide detailing the Azure configurations and processes your team followed? This would significantly enhance our understanding and expedite the deployment process. 

Specific areas where we require further clarity include:

- The Kconfig settings that were necessary for integrating with DPS and FOTA.

- The certificates used in the setup, including the certificate and rootCA used and where they were used.

- If you are using a storage blob? Could you please document the Azure storage method used to store the firmware so we can replicate your action?

- The configurations related to, CONFIG_FOTA_SEC_TAG, CONFIG_MQTT_HELPER_SEC_TAG, and CONFIG_MQTT_HELPER_SECONDARY_SEC_TAG.

Given the current state of the documentation, we are concerned that others attempting to use your sample might face similar roadblocks. Comprehensive guidance would benefit our team and enhance the sample's overall utility for everyone involved.

If providing such detailed information is not feasible, we may consider developing a custom wrapper around the Azure library to meet our needs. However, we are optimistic that we can effectively utilize the existing resources with your team's expertise and support.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.

We look forward to your response and any additional insights your team can offer to facilitate a smoother implementation process.

Best regards,

Actif

[Charlie]

Hi Vincent,

We have realized the struggle of developers with the Azure IoT sample released with the latest NCS v2.5.x. We will continue working on improving this sample on both implementation and documentation. This may take time, you can refer to an ongoing discussion for some of the questions you mentioned like DSP certificates. We can contintue the discussion if you still have problem with Azure FOTA.

(+) API registration of certification for Azure IoT Hub / DPS - Nordic Q&A - Nordic DevZone - Nordic DevZone (nordicsemi.com)

Best regards,

Charlie

[Actif]

Hello Charlie,

I just wanted to take a moment to wish you a happy Christmas season.
Thank you for all your help.

I have read through the other threads and can relate to certificate management challenges. Your understanding of our struggles is appreciated. I'm eagerly awaiting a more comprehensive Azure IoT Hub sample to be released.

However, I must admit that I'm still not entirely convinced that your team has tested the sample with the nrf7002DK, given that there was no mention of it initially. The documentation seemed to be geared towards the 9160. I had to bring a lot of giz to your team's attention through a private ticket, and they have assured me that they will include it in the documentation for version 2.6.0.

I'm not entirely convinced you have attempted to use the DPS + FOTA together. How the documentation is presented suggests that you may have treated these two options as independent and not tried to use them in conjunction. Please create a sample that is easy to understand and use without requiring extensive knowledge of Azure. This is why people pay extra for the Nordic infrastructure, which allows for low time-to-market. The current format forces the customer base to read through the Azure IoT documentation, Azure DPS documentation, and Azure storage documentation, which is not an efficient way to create a fast-to-market sample.

Please take some time to test the 7002dk with DPS + FOTA and share your experience with us. We would be grateful if you could let us know how you succeeded, which type of Azure storage you used, and what certificate was used and where. We faced issues while using DPS, as we had only a device certificate and no Azure IoT Hub certificate. We are finding it difficult to understand how you made it work with the proposed architecture from the sample.

I hope you can provide us with a solution, even if it proves me wrong.

Cheers,
Actif

[Charlie]

 Hi Actiff,

Our Azure IoT developer has provided a direct reply to the following ticket. Please continue the discussion there.

 RE: NEED HELP WITH FOTA VIA DEVICE PROVISIONING ON MY NRF7002DK - AZURE FOTA - IOT HUB 

Best regards,

Charlie

[Actif]

I will close this thread, as I have implemented everything on our end. However, it was not from the support received from Nordic regarding the Azure wrapper.

Also, Nordic wrapper implementation doesn't work with Azure device updates. Be advised before going forward with this wrapper. Maybe it could be a good idea to just implement your own, with the proper messaging that sticks to what Azure is doing so you can easily integrate into their platform.

Anyway, you won't receive much support or justification for doing the integration the way it is.

For anyone trying to implement the OTA mechanism, you can follow this example. It seems to me that it is the document Nordic used to get inspired to create their implementation. I hope this can save you an hour of reading.
Be careful with the metrics. Nordic messaging doesn't include uppercase, and not all options are the same. You can easily validate the reported message in the NRF lib.

learn.microsoft.com/.../ 

Regards,
Vincent