Azure Tutorials Series - Compute - Serverless Computing

-
In Compute category, we have learnt about Virtual Machines, Containers and App Services. In this article we will learn about server less computing which is the most efficient.

Serverless Computing

  • No upfront infrastructure cost  or maintenance needed
  • Automatic scaling
  • Code is written for custom bindings.
  • Broadly categorised into
    • Azure Functions
    • Azure Logic Apps
  • Depends upon the rate of incoming events
  • Events includes triggers such as timer, for an example, a function needs to run at 10 AM daily
  • Billing depends upon the time function is run, for example, a function runs once a day for two minutes, then you are charged for one execution and two minutes of computing time.

Azure Functions

  • Allow customers to deploy small pieces of code without worrying about the underlying infrastructure and platform.
  • Code can be execute using any language
  • Scale on demand
  • Execute code
  • Write code in any of supported language.
  • open-source, can be deployed anywhere
  • follows Code first approach
  • broadly categorised into
    • Stateless(default) - Doesn't keep track of prior activity, behaves as if restarted every time responding to an event.
    • Stateful - Can track prior activity.
  • Monitored using Azure Application Insights.
  • Managed using REST API or Visual Studio.
  • Can be run locally or in cloud.
  • Doesn't need a high degree of control over the environment.
  • Cost effective approach.

Azure Logic Apps

  • Execute workflows designed to automate business scenarios.
  • Visual designer for automating and orchestrating server-less tasks, processes and workflows.
  • Consists of large collection of connectors. User has to build its own custom connector.
  • Unlike Azure functions, it is Stateful(Durable)
  • follows design-first approach.
  • Build from predefined logic blocks
  • often no code is written
  • Over 200 different connectors and blocks to connect with different services
  • Monitored using either Azure portal or log analytics
  • Managed using Azure portal, Visual studio, REST API, Powershell.
  • Can run only in Cloud.

Comparison between Azure Logic Apps and Azure Functions

The most basic different between Azure Logic Apps and Azure functions, in simple words, we write code in Azure functions and in Azure Logic Apps, we use GUI to define the action to perform task.

Degree of Control from Virtua Machines to containers to server less computing can be in below order 

  • From Highest degree of control to the least one
    • Virtual Machines
    • Container instances
    • App Service
    • Functions
Below Azure products are available for Serverless -
  • Azure Functions
  • Azure Logic Apps
  • Azure Event Grid

Azure HDInsight

  • Fully managed, full spectrum, open source analytics services in the cloud for enterprises.
  • Uses Hadoop

Azure DataBricks

  • Helps setup your Apache Spark environment in minutes, autoscale, and collaborate on shared projects in an interactive workspace.

Azure Event Grid

  • By using Azure Event Grid you can use filters to route specific events to different endpoints, multicast to multiple endpoints, and make sure your events are reliably delivered.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Azure Tutorials Series - Azure Networking

-
Image
In this article, we will learn about Azure networking concepts such as architecture, microservices, virtual networks, VPNs, subnet, VPN gateways and most importantly Network Security Group(NSG). All these terms are to be understood if you appearing for AZ900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals exam. Azure Networking In previous articles we have learnt about Micro- services and how they work, these are alos loosely coupled architecture. Some of the features includes Independent components interact with each other with the help of queues Can be updated and deployed independently Highly scalable Supports Asynchronous messaging N-tier Architecture Supports loosely coupled architecture Application divided into multiple tiers such that higher tier can access lower tier but not vice versa Tiers are re-usable and can be updated or replaced easily without any hassle. Three-tier in general Web Tier(front end) Application tier(back end) Data tier(Storage) Virtual Network Isolated network shared by few g...
Read more

Testing in CI/CD

-
If you are part of testing fraternity you would have heard CI/CD numerous times by now. It's the talk of the software testing town. In this article, we will cover the basics of CI/CD, what actually it is and how it is implemented in software testing. What is continuous integration? In simple terms, development teams can integrate their code into a shared repository. This helps in maintaining code quality and identifying potential issues with the local version of the code at an early stage. What is continuous delivery? Everything that is being continuously merged by the development team, is continuously deployed to the live environment. Continuous delivery is often coined as ‘Continuous Deployment’ as well. Since most developers work in parallel, continuously integrating their code into one repository would mean that the master branch is continuously updated with new features. In order to ensure that there is no compromise in the code quality with so many changes...
Read more

Azure Tutorials Series - IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS

-
Image
We already have covered Public vs Private vs Hybrid differentiation in the previous article. In this article we will be covering three categories of cloud computing with relevant examples and details. Most of you might already be using these services in your daily day-to-day tasks unaware of the face that your organisation has already started the transition into the cloud. For an example, Office 365 is a active SaaS(Software as a service) that most of us uses, VMs are examples of IaaS(Infrastructure as a service) and Azure SQL Database is PaaS(Platform as a service). Now how do we differentiate between the three categories as a user? Will cover the details below. Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS) Service provider provides you the hardware User gets some control over the hardware, can customise operating system, storage and VMs. Ensuring service is up and running is shared responsibility While cloud provider makes sure that the hardware is functioning correctly, user needs to make sure ...
Read more