SaaS
Microsoft
Microsoft is retiring the Azure IoT Central application platform on 20 September 2029; existing IoT Central applications, device connections, dashboards, rules, and jobs must be re-built on Azure IoT Hub, Device Provisioning Service (DPS), Azure Device Registry, and Microsoft Fabric before the retirement date
departs 20 Sept 2029
Quick answers
- Is it true that Azure IoT Central will be retired on 20 September 2029 — migrate to Azure IoT Hub and Device Provisioning Service?
- Yes. Microsoft has officially announced it, effective 20 Sept 2029. Azure IoT Central — Microsoft's managed, application-platform-as-a-service for IoT — is being **retired in full on 20 September 2029**.
- When does it take effect?
- 20 Sept 2029. Verified against the vendor's own announcement.
- What should I use instead?
- Microsoft's recommended target is the Azure-native IoT platform: **Azure IoT Hub** and **Device Provisioning Service (DPS)** for device connectivity and provisioning, **Azure Device Registry** for device identity, and **Microsoft Fabric** for the real-time analytics, dashboards and data experiences IoT Central provided out of the box.
What this means for you
Azure IoT Central — Microsoft's managed, application-platform-as-a-service for IoT — is being **retired in full on 20 September 2029**. This is not a version bump or a single feature removal; it is the whole product going away, so everyone with an IoT Central application is affected: the device templates and connections, the built-in dashboards, the rules and jobs, the data exports, and any app or Power Platform / API integration that reads from IoT Central. Microsoft says applications keep working until the retirement date, but after 20 September 2029 the service is gone, and there is **no drop-in successor** — IoT Central bundled device management, storage, dashboards and rules into one turnkey SaaS, and the recommended path unbundles that into several Azure platform services you assemble yourself. The realistic lead time for anyone running production fleets on IoT Central is measured in quarters, not weeks, which is why Microsoft is telling customers to start transition planning now rather than near the date.
Where to go
Microsoft's recommended target is the Azure-native IoT platform: **Azure IoT Hub** and **Device Provisioning Service (DPS)** for device connectivity and provisioning, **Azure Device Registry** for device identity, and **Microsoft Fabric** for the real-time analytics, dashboards and data experiences IoT Central provided out of the box. Start by inventorying each IoT Central application — device templates, connected devices, dashboards, rules, jobs, continuous data exports, and downstream integrations — then map each capability onto the corresponding platform service using Microsoft's IoT Central migration playbook. There is no automatic one-click migration and no guarantee of feature parity, so treat this as an architecture project: stand up IoT Hub + DPS, re-model device templates, rebuild dashboards and rules on Fabric, re-point device firmware provisioning, and cut over fleet-by-fleet with validation before decommissioning the IoT Central app. Because the runway is long, the risk is not the date itself but under-scoping the rebuild — begin the assessment well ahead of 20 September 2029.
- Azure IoT Hub + Device Provisioning Service (DPS) — Microsoft's recommended device connectivity and provisioning target
- Azure Device Registry — device identity and management
- Microsoft Fabric — real-time analytics, dashboards, and data experiences
Microsoft is retiring Azure IoT Central, its managed IoT application platform, on 20 September 2029. The official Azure retirement notice (published 29 September 2026) says applications can keep running until that date, but recommends starting transition planning early — because there is no single replacement product.
What is going away
IoT Central was Microsoft’s turnkey IoT offering: device templates, provisioning, storage, dashboards, rules, jobs and data export bundled into one SaaS application you configured rather than built. Retiring it removes that bundle wholesale. If you run an IoT Central application, everything attached to it — device connections, dashboards, rules, continuous exports, and any API or Power Platform integration that reads from it — stops when the service is switched off on 20 September 2029.
Why, and where Microsoft points you
Microsoft says future Azure IoT investment is going into platform services with more scalability and flexibility, plus integration with Microsoft Fabric for analytics and AI workloads. The recommended target architecture is the Azure-native stack:
- Azure IoT Hub + Device Provisioning Service (DPS) — device connectivity and at-scale provisioning
- Azure Device Registry — device identity and management
- Microsoft Fabric — the real-time dashboards, analytics and broader data experiences IoT Central gave you for free
What to do
There is no automated migration and no promise of one-to-one feature parity, so treat this as an architecture project rather than a config change. Inventory each IoT Central application — device templates, connected devices, dashboards, rules, jobs, exports, integrations — and map each onto the corresponding platform service using Microsoft’s IoT Central migration playbook. Stand up IoT Hub + DPS, re-model your device templates, rebuild dashboards and rules on Fabric, re-point device provisioning, and cut over fleet-by-fleet with validation before decommissioning the app. The retirement is far out, but the rebuild is the kind of work that expands once you start — the honest move is to scope it now.
Entry changelog
- — last reviewed.
- — Entry created from Microsoft's official Azure retirement notice (Azure Updates id 569914, published 29 September 2026). The Azure Updates page is JavaScript-rendered and does not fetch server-side, so the retirement date (20 September 2029), the affected product, and the recommended migration path (IoT Hub + DPS + Azure Device Registry + Microsoft Fabric) were verified against Microsoft's server-rendered release-communications API (id 569914). No detect fingerprint: IoT Central is a hosted application platform with no package, image, or runtime string a codebase would contain (SOURCING §6).
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