Book Image

Azure Serverless Computing Cookbook - Second Edition

By : Praveen Kumar Sreeram, Jason Marston
Book Image

Azure Serverless Computing Cookbook - Second Edition

By: Praveen Kumar Sreeram, Jason Marston

Overview of this book

Microsoft provides a solution for easily running small segments of code in the cloud with Azure Functions. The second edition of Azure Serverless Computing Cookbook starts with intermediate-level recipes on serverless computing along with some use cases demonstrating the benefits and key features of Azure Functions. You’ll explore the core aspects of Azure Functions, such as the services it provides, how you can develop and write Azure Functions, and how to monitor and troubleshoot them. As you make your way through the chapters, you’ll get practical recipes on integrating DevOps with Azure Functions, and providing continuous integration and continuous deployment with Azure DevOps. This book also provides hands-on, step-by-step tutorials based on real-world serverless use cases to guide you through configuring and setting up your serverless environments with ease. You will also learn how to build solutions for complex, real-world, workflow-based scenarios quickly and with minimal code using Durable Functions. In the concluding chapters, you will ensure enterprise-level security within your serverless environment. The most common tips and tricks that you need to be aware of when working with Azure Functions on production environments will also be covered in this book. By the end of this book, you will have all the skills required for working with serverless code architecture, providing continuous delivery to your users.

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Table of Contents (13 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Sections
Get in touch
Free Chapter
1
Developing Cloud Applications Using Function Triggers and Bindings
Developing Cloud Applications Using Function Triggers and Bindings
Introduction
Building a backend Web API using HTTP triggers
Persisting employee details using Azure Storage table output bindings
Saving the profile images to Queues using Queue output bindings
Storing the image in Azure Blob Storage
2
Working with Notifications Using the SendGrid and Twilio Services
Working with Notifications Using the SendGrid and Twilio Services
Introduction
Sending an email notification to the administrator of a website using the SendGrid service
Sending an email notification dynamically to the end user
Implementing email logging in Azure Blob Storage
Modifying the email content to include an attachment
Sending an SMS notification to the end user using the Twilio service
3
Seamless Integration of Azure Functions with Azure Services
Seamless Integration of Azure Functions with Azure Services
Introduction
Using Cognitive Services to locate faces in images
Azure SQL Database interactions using Azure Functions
Monitoring tweets using Logic Apps and notifying users when a popular user tweets
Integrating Logic Apps with serverless functions
Auditing Cosmos DB data using change feed triggers
4
Understanding the Integrated Developer Experience of Visual Studio Tools
Understanding the Integrated Developer Experience of Visual Studio Tools
Introduction
Creating a function app using Visual Studio 2017
Debugging C# Azure Functions on a local staged environment using Visual Studio 2017
Connecting to the Azure Storage cloud from the local Visual Studio environment
Deploying the Azure Function app to Azure Cloud using Visual Studio
Debugging a live C# Azure Function, hosted on the Microsoft Azure Cloud environment, using Visual Studio
Deploying Azure Functions in a container
5
Exploring Testing Tools for the Validation of Azure Functions
Exploring Testing Tools for the Validation of Azure Functions
Introduction
Testing Azure Functions
Testing an Azure Function on a staged environment using deployment slots
Load testing Azure Functions using Azure DevOps
Creating and testing Azure Functions locally using the Azure CLI tools
Testing and validating Azure Function responsiveness using Application Insights
Developing unit tests for Azure Functions with HTTP triggers
6
Monitoring and Troubleshooting Azure Serverless Services
Monitoring and Troubleshooting Azure Serverless Services
Introduction
Troubleshooting your Azure Functions
Integrating Azure Functions with Application Insights
Monitoring your Azure Functions
Pushing custom telemetry details to Application Insights Analytics
Sending application telemetry details via email
Integrating real-time Application Insights monitoring data with Power BI using Azure Functions
7
Developing Reliable Serverless Applications Using Durable Functions
Developing Reliable Serverless Applications Using Durable Functions
Introduction
Configuring Durable Functions in the Azure Management portal
Creating a Durable Function hello world app
Testing and troubleshooting Durable Functions
Implementing multithreaded reliable applications using Durable Functions
8
Bulk Import of Data Using Azure Durable Functions and Cosmos DB
Bulk Import of Data Using Azure Durable Functions and Cosmos DB
Introduction
Uploading employee data into Blob Storage
Creating a Blob trigger
Creating the Durable Orchestrator and triggering it for each Excel import
Reading Excel data using activity functions
Auto-scaling Cosmos DB throughput
Bulk inserting data into Cosmos DB
9
Implementing Best Practices for Azure Functions
Implementing Best Practices for Azure Functions
Adding multiple messages to a queue using the IAsyncCollector function
Implementing defensive applications using Azure Functions and queue triggers
Handling massive ingress using Event Hubs for IoT and other similar scenarios
Avoiding cold starts by warming the app at regular intervals
Enabling authorization for function apps
Controlling access to Azure Functions using function keys
Securing Azure Functions using Azure Active Directory
Configuring the throttling of Azure Functions using API Management
Securely accessing SQL Database from Azure Functions using Managed Service Identity
Shared code across Azure Functions using class libraries
Using strongly typed classes in Azure Functions
10
Configuring of Serverless Applications in the Production Environment
Configuring of Serverless Applications in the Production Environment
Introduction
Deploying Azure Functions using Run From Package
Deploying Azure Function using ARM templates
Configuring custom domains to Azure Functions
Techniques to access Application Settings
Creating and generating open API specifications using Swagger
Breaking down large APIs into small subsets of APIs using proxies
Moving configuration items from one environment to another using resources
11
Implementing and Deploying Continuous Integration Using Azure DevOps
Implementing and Deploying Continuous Integration Using Azure DevOps
Introduction
Continuous integration – creating a build definition
Continuous integration – queuing a build and triggering it manually
Configuring and triggering an automated build
Continuous integration – executing unit test cases in the pipeline
Creating a release definition
Triggering the release automatically
12
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Avoiding cold starts by warming the app at regular intervals

By now, you might be aware of the fact that you can create Azure functions in the following two hosting plans:

  • App Service plan
  • Consumption plan

You will only get all the benefits of serverless architecture when you create the function app using the consumption plan. However, one of the concerns that developers report about using the consumption plan is something called cold starting, which refers to spinning up an Azure function to serve the requests when there have been no requests for quite some time. You can learn more about this topic at https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/appserviceteam/2018/02/07/understanding-serverless-cold-start/.

In this recipe, we will learn about a technique that could be used to always keep the instance live and warm so that all requests are served properly.

The App Service plan is a dedicated...
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