MSDN Sessions 032817 - Azure Functions
- 2. Azure Functions Serverless in the Microsoft world
- 3. ServerlessApplication Architectures • Refers to applications with architectures that depend significantly on third-party services • Backend as a Service (BaaS) - eliminates repeated stack development • User management, social integration, push messaging • Mobile integration, data sync, application storage • Opinionated approach to serverless • Follow provider’s API • Functions as a Service (FaaS) offerings such as AWS Lambda, Cloud Functions for Firebase, Azure Functions
- 4. Backend as a Service var user = new User(username, password); await app.Users().CreateAsync(user); var product = await app.Data<Item>().GetById(10); var pages = await app.Search(“Pages”, SearchType.Contains, searchTerm);
- 5. Function as a Service • Triggered by events such as a schedule, an HTTP trigger, manual calls, among others • Ephemeral – short lived. Function executes, function exits. • Completely custom code • Integrate with any 3rd party dependency, even BaaS • Stateless – each execution should be designed independent from each other
- 6. A non-serverless architecture Most of the logic lives on the server application Client / Browser (Razor Views) Server Application (ASP.NET MVC) Database (SQL / NoSQL) 3rd Party API 3rd Party API
- 7. Moving to a serverless architecture #1 Authentication service moved to a Backend-as-a-Service such as Auth0 Client calls BaaS directly via Auth0 JS SDK Client / Browser (Single Page App) Configuration Store (SQL / NoSQL) Authentication Service Auth0 #1 Blog Database AWS DynamoDB #2 Admin/Maintenance Azure Functions Page Editing Azure Functions #3 #4 #4
- 8. Moving to a serverless architecture #2 Allow client direct access to a subset of our data, with a read- only security profile on public data In this case, client directly queries AWS DynamoDB Client / Browser (Single Page App) Configuration Store (SQL / NoSQL) Authentication Service Auth0 #1 Blog Database AWS DynamoDB #2 Admin/Maintenance Azure Functions Page Editing Azure Functions #3 #4 #4
- 9. Moving to a serverless architecture #3 Call different Azure Functions for maintenance and page editing Azure Functions write to their respective data stores Client / Browser (Single Page App) Configuration Store (SQL / NoSQL) Authentication Service Auth0 #1 Blog Database AWS DynamoDB #2 Admin/Maintenance Azure Functions Page Editing Azure Functions #3 #4 #4
- 10. Azure Functions What it’s really like
- 11. Use C# syntax (or node.js among others) • Non-opinionated code – no coding to a framework vs BaaS • Depending on function, just a slight change to ‘main’ / ‘startup code’ is necessary • A lot of input and output triggers and bindings available • Manual, timer • Blob, tables, queues, service bus, event hubs • HTTP, Webhooks • Output to SMS, another queue, blob, push notification
- 12. Pros and Cons • Based on App Services / Web Jobs • Code can be written/uploaded on the portal, continuous deployment via VSTS is available (Git/TFS/etc.) • Logging and real-time streams available in dashboard • Debug using VS Tools for Azure Functions (Preview on VS 2015) • Still under heavy development, still evolving and changing • Incomplete intellisense for Dynamic C# • Missing fine-grained controls/settings
- 13. Demo Time! …and some notes afterwards
- 14. Notes • Dynamic C#/ScriptCs - dynamically compiled on execution • You can also run pre-compiled code • You can load external dlls and other .csx files via #load • You can load pre-included libraries via #r • You can include NuGet packages via project.json and #r • You can contribute – bug reports, pull requests – fast response