And just like Brad Sams of Petri predicted last week, Microsoft, at the second day of its Build Developer’s Conference, announced that it is launching Azure Functions in preview. This is a new event-driven computing service rivaling the likes of the AWS Lambda and Google Cloud Functions.
The new service will allow developers to set predefined events which will trigger according to various parameters (also set by them) into their applications. The computers will take it off from there, relieving humans from the workload. This type of service is highly suitable for Internet of Things applications as well as for Web, mobile and big data features, too. Functions will charge developers only as long as their algorithms run meaning it scales automatically to meet demands.
Functions is, in many ways, similar to IBM’s Bluemix OpenWhisk, both being open-source. This counters the other services the market has to offer including Amazon Web Service’s Lambda and Google’s Cloud Functions which don’t run on open-source runtimes.
This means companies will be able to host Azure Functions in their own data centers. Another advantage of the new service is that it allows you to write your code in a wide variety of languages, including C# and Node.js, said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president for Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group.
Here are some of the key features of Azure Functions as highlighted by the Redmond giant:
- Easily schedule event-driven tasks across services
- Expose Functions as HTTP API endpoints
- Scale Functions based on customer demand
- Develop how you want, using a browser-based UI or existing tools
- Get continuous deployment, remote debugging, and authentication out of the box
