A very quick post today, on the back of Experts Live Europe where I presented a session on using APIs and Azure Functions to develop the DevOps Toolkit of the Future. Azure Functions are one of the best ways to get automation into and around your datacentre. Why? Because you can use them in a full cloud infrastructure, hybrid scenarios, or as standalone automation tools. I recommend following Ryan’s blog at dftai.ch for advanced tips on this topic. I want to get you started on creating your first Azure Function App as a basis for upcoming posts on the subject.
Things you will need:
A Powershell script or module
An Azure subscription
For our EL session, Ryan developed a Spotify API module for Powershell and posted it to GitHub here. The premise was an idea to have more control of Spotify through their open API, for personal use, but I thought we could also use this to highlight what can be done in Azure in terms of tooling and automation. The Spotify module is an example of standalone automation.
So, the idea of this post is to show you how to quickly implement a simple Azure Function, using code you already have, and leveraging the functionality available in Azure.
Let’s get started, open Azure Portal and log in with your Azure subscription. Then click on +New, Search Marketplace for Function App and select this type, then click Create.
You need to give your Function App a unique name, then select a hosting plan depending on your subscription. I am using a Consumption Plan for this demo. Also, either create new or use existing storage. The configuration of your app needs to be saved into this storage. I pinned my app to the dashboard so I can find it easily.
If it creates successfully, I can open my Function App and see the Functions, Proxies and Slots. So I create a new Function here and I can add my powershell code. I add a HTTPTriggerPowershell function under the custom types.
Now, because I am not using Source Control (Advanced Topic) I can simply edit my powershell code in the directly portal.
I can also edit the Triggers (HTTP), the inputs (Cosmos DB for instance) and outputs (HTTP) in the Integrate Tab.
You should notice that the variables for the inputs and outputs are automatically inserted into the code.
Now copy the function URL
We are ready to test! Let’s create a powershell script on our local machine like this:
$functionurl = “”
$json = ‘{
“method”: “POST”,
“name”: “Andrew”
}’
Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $functionurl -Method POST -Body $json
Run you script and voila, Hello World, or Hello Andrew in my demo, triggered by HTTP POST, running in Azure and returning a result to your local machine. Serverless, hybrid automation.
That’s it. Check out Ryan’s blog for how to work with the Integrate tab (Triggers, Inputs and Outputs). You are ready to start implementing more powerful scripts, check out the Spotify Modules, think about connecting to other APIs, hmm, that sounds like the next post in the series. So, until then: happy serverless computing!
Andrew.
Life In The Cloud 