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intro to Azure Functions
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presentation.md
  • title : Azure Functions
  • description : Introduction to Azure Functions with F#
  • author : Mathias Brandewinder
  • theme : night
  • transition : default

An intro to Azure Functions with F#

Disclaimer

  • Just started using Azure Functions last week

Goal

  • General (read "basic") introduction
  • Some tips & tricks to get you started

Plan

  • What are Azure Functions?
  • An example: @fsibot
  • Hands-on introduction

What are Functions?

Process events with serverless code

Azure Functions is a serverless event driven experience that extends the existing Azure App Service platform. These nano-services can scale based on demand and you pay only for the resources you consume.

Azure functions

"Serverless Event Driven"?

  • A Function is a script which contains, well, a function - F#, C#, or Node.JS
  • Triggers define what event trigger the function execution
  • Runtime is based on WebJobs SDK, manages execution and scaling
  • A Function App is a collection of Functions

Anatomy of a Function

This is a function, defined in filefoo.fsx:

open System.Environment

let Run(timer: TimerInfo, log: TraceWriter) =

    log.Info("Function was triggered!")

... where is the timer coming from?

Bindings

A file function.json in the same folder defines bindings:

{
  "bindings": [
    {
      "schedule": "0 * * * * *",
      "name": "timer",
      "type": "timerTrigger",
      "direction": "in"
    }
  ],
  "disabled": false
}
  • uses a CRON expression {second} {minute} {hour} {day} {month} {day of the week}
  • defines the timer using as input (in) in the Run function.
  • every binding contains at least type, direction, name

Bindings (cont'd)

  • Timer
  • Storage (Blog, Queue, Table)
  • HTTP/webhook
  • Service Bus
  • Notification Hubs, Mobile Apps, Event Hubs, DocumentDB...

What if you need a Nuget package?

Define your dependencies in a project.json in the same folder:

{
  "frameworks": {
    "net46":{
      "dependencies": {
        ""FSharp.Compiler.Service": "6.0.1"
      }
    }
  }
}
  • Some common dependencies are already there for you (Json.NET for instance)

How do you write & deploy code?

  • App Service Editor
  • Continuous deployment
  • Kudu (whatever that is)
  • FTP

Pricing

METER PRICE FREE GRANT (PER MONTH)
Execution Time $0.000008/GB-s 400,000 GB-s
Total Executions $0.20 per Million Executions 1 Million Executions
  • GB-s: memory size in Gigabytes of your app by the sum of execution time in seconds
  • this is preview price

Before looking at code...

  • Functions are in preview
  • Development experience in App Service Editor is currently primitive
  • Classic vs. Dynamic
  • F# support improving by the day (perf, documentation)

Question so far?

A "practical" example: @fsibot

@fsibot is a side-project of mine; you can send F# code to @fsibot on Twitter, and it will evaluate the expression and respond with the result.

Example 1
Example 2

Original version used F#, deployed as Windows Service(s) using TopShelf, on a VM Rewrote entirely using Azure Functions last weekend

Application

Application flow:

  • did anyone mention @fsibot on Twitter?
  • retrieve Tweet, User and Message
  • extract code and run it using F# Compiler Service
  • respond to the Tweet

Architecture

3 functions:

  • fsibotmentions: probe for mentions every 2 minutes, send them to a Queue "mentionsQueue"
  • fsibotcompiler: dequeue message from "mentionsQueue", try to compile, send result to a Queue "responseQueue"
  • fsibottweets: dequeue message from "responseQueue", format response, send response

Guided Tour

Statelessness

  • Twitter mentions: how do I know if a mention has already been processed?
  • I cannot keep in memory the ID of the last processed Tweet
  • Solution: read / write to a blob
  • Heavy? Perhaps. But arguably good (fault-tolerant) design

Messages

So far I have found the easiest approach is to

  • create types for messages
  • serialize/deserialize using JSON
  • represent messages as strings in the function signature
  • note: outgoing messages use byref

Resources

Azure Functions
F# documentation
Greg Shackles
Michał Niegrzybowski
The great @fsibot caper

Hands on

... let's create a simple demo function!

Creating a function app

  1. Go to the Azure Portal: https://portal.azure.com
  2. Select + New > Function App > Create
  3. Select a name (ex: mathias-sfsharp-09-2016), subscription, new Resource Group (ex: mathias-sfsharp-09-2016), Classic App Service Plan, Pin to dashboard
  4. Be patient... (2 minutes?)

Creating a function

  1. Select New Function > Language F# > Empty, name it "TimerFunction"
  2. You should now have in Code:
open System

let Run(log: TraceWriter ) =
    log.Verbose("F# function executed.");

Bindings

  1. We need to add some bindings. Go to Integrate > New Trigger > Timer > Select. Leave the timer named "myTimer", the Schedule as is, and Save.
  2. Go back to Develop. Under Code, click "View Files". Select "function.json", you should see the following bindings:
{
  "bindings": [
    {
      "type": "timerTrigger",
      "name": "myTimer",
      "schedule": "0 * * * * *",
      "direction": "in"
    }
  ],
  "disabled": false
}

Getting the function working

  1. Select run.fsx, and modify the code:
open System

let Run(myTimer: TimerInfo, log: TraceWriter ) =

    log.Info("F# function executed.")

Getting the function working (cont'd)

  1. Hit Save (which should now be red). In the Logs window, you should see the following:
2016-09-18T00:54:39.233 Script for function 'TimerFunction' changed. Reloading.
...
2016-09-18T00:54:40.201 Compilation succeeded.
2016-09-18T00:55:00.002 Function started (Id=cebd8264-49f4-4f28-9e72-abac866f05b3)
2016-09-18T00:55:00.002 F# function executed.
2016-09-18T00:55:00.002 Function completed (Success, Id=cebd8264-49f4-4f28-9e72-abac866f05b3)
  1. If you give it a minute, you should see a second message
2016-09-18T00:56:00.003 F# function executed.
2016-09-18T00:56:00.003 Function completed (Success, Id=9a3a6acc-78bc-4802-8c53-d83521be58b0)

... your timer function is now up-and-running :)

Using configuration

  1. Let's use some configuration. Under "Search my functions", below "Monitor", click "Function app settings" > Configure app settings. In the app settings section, add a Key and Value, for instance "Hello" and "World", and save on the top-left corner.

  2. Close by clicking [X] in the top-right corner

  3. Go back to TimerFunction, and edit the code in run.fsx:

open System
open System.Configuration

let Run(myTimer: TimerInfo, log: TraceWriter ) =

    let appSettings = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings    
    let value = appSettings.["Hello"]
    log.Info("Hello, " + value)
    log.Info("F# function executed.")

Using configuration (cont'd)

You should now see in the log:

2016-09-18T01:02:33.796 Script for function 'TimerFunction' changed. Reloading.
...
2016-09-18T01:02:35.280 Compilation succeeded.
2016-09-18T01:03:00.002 Function started (Id=3cf142c4-8993-4de2-b81d-ee54e54e5c8f)
2016-09-18T01:03:00.002 Hello, World
2016-09-18T01:03:00.002 F# function executed.
2016-09-18T01:03:00.002 Function completed (Success, Id=3cf142c4-8993-4de2-b81d-ee54e54e5c8f)

dependencies

  1. Let's add a nuget package, say, FSharp.Data version 2.3.2. Go to Show Files, click +, add a file called project.json, paste in the following:
{
  "frameworks": {
    "net46":{
      "dependencies": {
        "fsharp.data": "2.3.2"
      }
    }
  }
}

Dependencies (cont'd)

You should see in the logs something like this:

2016-09-18T01:13:27.926 Restoring packages.
2016-09-18T01:13:27.926 Starting NuGet restore
2016-09-18T01:13:28.941 Restoring packages for D:\home\site\wwwroot\TimerFunction\project.json...
2016-09-18T01:13:29.316 GET https://api.nuget.org/v3-flatcontainer/fsharp.data/index.json
2016-09-18T01:13:29.582 OK https://api.nuget.org/v3-flatcontainer/fsharp.data/index.json 268ms
...
2016-09-18T01:13:37.267 Packages restored.
2016-09-18T01:13:37.579 Script for function 'TimerFunction' changed. Reloading.
2016-09-18T01:13:39.938 D:\home\site\wwwroot\TimerFunction\run.fsx(4,9): warning FS1182: The value 'myTimer' is unused
2016-09-18T01:13:39.938 D:\local\Temp\tmp4047.fsx(9,38): warning FS988: Main module of program is empty: nothing will happen when it is run
2016-09-18T01:13:39.938 Compilation succeeded.

Dependencies (cont'd)

  1. We can now use fsharp.data in run.fsx:
open System
open System.Configuration
open FSharp.Data

let Run(myTimer: TimerInfo, log: TraceWriter ) =

    let appSettings = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings    
    let value = appSettings.["Hello"]
    log.Info("Hello, " + value)

    let data = WorldBankData.GetDataContext()
    let capital = data.Countries.France.CapitalCity
    log.Info("Capital of France is " + capital)

    log.Info("F# function executed.")

Queues, Blobs, Tables

  1. Storage: how to create and use a Queue? Go to Integrate > Outputs > Azure Storage Queue > Select, and in the Storage Account Connection, select new; you should see here the storage account that was created for you as you created the function.

That's it for now :)

  1. You can Disable or Delete the function in Manage, and look at some more logs under Monitor.

... thank you!

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