Azure Functions - Introduction

What is Azure Functions
• Run small piece of code (functions) in cloud
• Supported languages – C#, Python, Node.js, PHP
• Serverless Code architecture
• Event driven on-demand compute
• Triggered by events occurring in Azure, 3rd Party systems, OnPrem
• Scale based on demand
• Integrated security
• Leverage existing Azure and other SaaS services
• Pay per-use pricing model

Application of Azure Functions
Azure functions enables you to:
1. Process data based on triggers
2. Working with IOT data
3. Build Simple APIs
4. Microservices
5. Any scheduled operations

Azure Function Integrations
 Azure Cosmos DB
 Azure Event Hubs
 Azure Mobile Apps
 Azure Notification Hubs
 Azure Service bus (Queues and Topics)
 Azure Storage (Tables, Blobs and Queues)
 Github (Webooks)
On Premises (using Service Bus)
 Twilio (using SMS)

Azure Functions - Pricing
Factors determining the Pricing are:
1. Executions – Total number of executions for all functions per month. (0.20$ per million executions)
2. Resource Consumption – Measured in Gigabyte Seconds (GB-s) (Average memory size in GB X
Execution time in seconds) (0.000016 /GB-s)
Storage account is created with each functions App. Any usage is charged at standard storage
rates.
Azure functions Pricing calculator - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/functions/

Consumption Plan
Consumption Plan – Pay for the time your code runs
 Dynamic scaling based on the number of incoming requests (Scale out based on load)
 Pricing based on Resource consumption and Executions
 Free grant of 1 million requests and 400,000 GB-s
 Max execution time of 5 mins for a function
 Max memory limit of 1.5 GB per instance of function host.

App Service Plan
 With App Service plan there is no additional cost for running Azure Functions
 Azure functions run on Dedicated VMs (Basic, Standard, Premium) allocated to your App
Service.
 Azure functions host is always running
 When to use App Service Plan:
 Function to run continuously or near continuously
 Need more memory than provided by the consumption plan
 Run longer than maximum execution time provided in the consumption plan
 Under utilized VMs available for consumption.
 VM decouples the both runtime and memory size.
Scale out using Auto scale / different App service plan.

Azure Integration Options
 Azure provides support for gluing disparate systems
 Define input, actions, conditions and output.
 Runs on triggers or schedules
 Some of choices available in Azure are:
◦ Microsoft Flow
◦ Azure Logic Apps
◦ Azure Functions
◦ App Service Web Jobs

Azure Functions vs Web Jobs
WebJobs Core SDK
WebJobs Extensions
WebJobs Scripts Runtime
Triggers
Inputs /
Outputs
Language
Support
Azure Functions Runtime

Azure Functions – Triggers & Bindings
• Triggers are ways to start executing your Azure function code
• Bindings are declarative way to bind data to the Azure function
• All triggers have input data
• Data coming from services become input values for function code
• To output data to another service use the return value of the method.

Supported Triggers and Bindings

Azure Function Code
 Write function in language of choice
 Save the code and configuration files in the same folder
 Configuration is saved in file function.json
 function.json file defines the function bindings and other configuration data

Azure Function App
 Grouping of multiple Azure functions
 All the functions share the same pricing plan, deployment
and runtime version
 Functions can be written in different languages
 Runtime can invoke functions multiple times in parallel.
 Max concurrency depends on the type of trigger and
resource used by other functions in the function App.
 Azure functions pulse can be used to monitor the average
execution time.

Azure Functions CSX for C#
 CSX allows to run less boilerplate code and focus on the function
 Refer any assemblies and namespaces directly
 Parameters are bind to the CSX function based on the name property specified in the
functions.json configuration
 Types of parameter supported depends on each binding
 Use the Tracewrite for any logging
 Reference external assemblies - #r "AssemblyName“
 Reuse .csx code using the load call. (#load "mylogger.csx“)

Azure Functions demo
 Basic Azure Function Example
 Timer Triggered Function Example
 Github Webhook Function Example
 Adding message to Azure Queue using Functions
 Demo Workflow – Github -> Webhook -> Service Bus -> Blob Storage -> Send Grid

Develop and Debug locally
 Support for developing and debugging Azure functions locally using CLI tools
 Need to have installed the Azure Function Core Tools
 Create a new Azure function App ( func init MyFunctionProj )
 Create a new Azure function ( func new --language C# --template HttpTrigger --name
MyHttpTrigger )
 Run functions locally ( func host start )
 Publishing function App to Azure (func azure functionapp publish <FunctionAppName> )

Azure Functions Runtime
 Azure functions runtime enables to run Azure functions on-premises.
 Enables identical development experience as the cloud service.
 Run locally before committing to the cloud.
 Azure functions runtime consist of the following:
 Azure Functions Runtime Management Role – Host for management of functions on-premises
 Azure Functions Worker Role – Windows container used to execute the Azure functions
 Needs Windows Server 2016 or Windows 10 Creators Update with access to a SQL
Server instance.

References
1. Azure Functions Resources

Azure Functions - Introduction

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