What are Azure Functions?
Azure Functions is a serverless compute service provided by Microsoft Azure that allows developers to run event-triggered code without the need to provision or manage infrastructure 1. This service is designed to execute a piece of code or script in response to a variety of events, making it ideal for tasks that need to be performed quickly, often within seconds or less 2.
Azure Functions supports multiple programming languages, including C#, F#, JavaScript, Java, PowerShell, Python, and TypeScript, among others 1. The service is designed to be scalable, automatically allocating necessary resources when the demand for code execution increases, and disposing of any leftover resources when the demand decreases 3.
Azure Functions can be triggered by a variety of events, such as HTTP requests, timers, or messages from other Azure services 1. They are commonly used for tasks like reminders and notifications, scheduled tasks, file processing, and data stream processing 3. They can also be used to build web APIs, respond to database changes, process IoT streams, manage message queues, and more 9.
Azure Functions offers several hosting options, including the Consumption plan where you only pay for execution time, and the Premium plan which provides always warm instances for faster response times 4. The service integrates with various Azure services and offers a high level of hardware abstraction, allowing developers to focus on core business logic 7.
Source: perplexity.ai with the prompt “what are azure functions?”
Examples
- KlickerUZH: Azure Function with an HTTP trigger that adds a message to azure-service-bus (queue) for asynchronous further processing (in typescript) -> https://github.com/uzh-bf/klicker-uzh/tree/v3/apps/func-incoming-responses
- KlickerUZH: Azure Function with an azure-service-bus trigger that processes the message and updates state in a Redis cache (in typescript) -> https://github.com/uzh-bf/klicker-uzh/tree/v3/apps/func-response-processor
- KlickerUZH: Azure Function with an azure-service-bus trigger that reads from MongoDB and stores a new file on azure-blob-storage (in typescript) -> https://github.com/uzh-bf/klicker-uzh/tree/v3/apps/func-migration-v2-export
- KlickerUZH: Azure Function with an azure-blob-storage trigger that processes a JSON blob and updates data in PostgreSQL (in typescript) -> https://github.com/uzh-bf/klicker-uzh/tree/v3/apps/func-migration-v3-import
- KlickerUZH: github-actions workflow for automated deployment of an Azure Function -> https://github.com/uzh-bf/klicker-uzh/blob/v3/.github/workflows/v3_klickeruzhprod-responses.yml
Further Resources
- Azure Functions Documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/
- Azure Functions Best Practice: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-best-practices
- Integrating Azure Functions with Container Apps: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-deploy-container-apps?tabs=acr%2Cbash&pivots=programming-language-typescript
- Github Actions for Azure Functions Deployment: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-how-to-github-actions?tabs=windows%252Cdotnet