Microsoft Azure Functions

Azure Functions is the service which provides serverless computing hosted on the Microsoft Azure public cloud. It is designed to accelerate and simplify application development.

What is serverless computing? It is also known as function as a service and is to eliminate infrastructure considerations for the user. With this service, a user can simply create and upload code and then define the triggers/events that will execute the code. Triggers can come from a wide range of sources including another user’s application or other cloud services.

Azure Functions uses:

The Azure Event Hub can deliver different events that trigger functions related to conditions in the cloud environment or a user account.
A generic webhook can process HTTP requests, which allows triggers to come from websites or GitHub repositories.
Message traffic can trigger functions. For example, messages that arrive in an Azure Storage queue can trigger functions.
Timers can also trigger Functions, which allows users to execute regular tasks, such as file cleanups, on a regular schedule.

Developing code for Azure Functions:

Azure Functions reduce the need to provision, manage and pay for computing resources in the cloud, which enables the company to focus more on code development. This makes Azure Functions beneficial to software developers.

Azure supports functions developed in C#, Node.js, Python, PHP, batch, bash and any executable file format. Azure Functions also supports the NuGet open-source package manager and the Node Package Manager for JavaScript, allowing developers to use popular libraries.
Developers can code Azure Functions directly within the Azure portal, but can also manage the continuous integration and deploy code through GitHub, Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services and other development tools, such as Xcode and Eclipse.

Security is also required to ensure that only valid requests from authorized users or triggers will drive functions. Azure Functions secures outside HTTP triggers with OAuth systems, such as Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Account credentials and more.