Azure Functions C#: Serverless Development from Zero to Hero

Create your first Azure function with an http trigger in Visual Studio 2022, using anonymous authorization, and run locally to return hello name from query string or request body.

Explore the Azure Functions project structure, including host.json, local Settings.json, gitignore, launch settings, function.json bindings for http trigger with get/post and anonymous auth, and dll entry point.

Add your own function to an Azure function app by creating an http trigger with anonymous access, using boilerplate code, and enabling logging for application insights.

Explain in-process versus isolated Azure Functions and advocate the isolated worker model before the 2026 deprecation; show updating Function Worker NuGet packages to fix build errors and call the endpoint.

Explore timer triggers in Azure Functions, using cron notation to schedule tasks such as daily reports, cleanup, or backups, and implement a timer-triggered function with logging.

Trigger an Azure function automatically when a new queue item arrives, and learn to configure a queue trigger in Visual Studio, use storage explorer, and test locally.

Explore how a blob trigger in Azure Functions runs when files are added to Azure Blob storage, and test locally with Visual Studio and Azure Storage Explorer.

Explore input and output bindings in Azure Functions, demonstrating a queue trigger writing messages to blob storage as files and validating the end-to-end data transfer with minimal code.

Explore Azure Functions deployment options—consumption, premium, and dedicated plans, balancing pay-as-you-go scaling, pre-warmed capacity, and full VNet integration.

Learn to use the Azure pricing calculator to estimate function costs by region, size, and execution time, compare consumption and premium plans, and understand cold start implications.

Explore how to start with a free Azure account, claim $200 credit for one month, and access the Quickstart Center. Navigate the Azure Portal basics, budgeting, regions, and resource grouping.

Publish and deploy an Azure function from Visual Studio by creating a function app with a publish profile, then verify deployment in Azure and delete resource group to avoid charges.

Learn how Azure functions auto-scale horizontally, mitigate cold starts with premium plans and warm strategies, and apply best practices for lightweight, single-responsibility functions and proper configuration.

Explore monitoring with Azure Application Insights by logging HTTP trigger function results, capturing exceptions and traces, and querying with KQL to analyze logs and failed requests.

Explore KCL with Azure Data Explorer using sample data and basic tables. Practice simple queries with where clauses, count, and summarize, and read the accompanying Medium blog.

Explore alerts, logging, and diagnostics in Azure portal by monitoring function apps with Application Insights, metrics, and live logs, and create alert rules using custom log search with KQL.

Durable functions orchestrate tasks with memory, resume work after delays or failures, and extend Azure Functions to provide stateful, serverless workflows.

Learn how the durable task framework, a dotnet library, enables long running, stateful workflows with automatic checkpointing, retries, and fan-out fan-in orchestration for resilient microservices.

Explore function chaining in Azure durable functions, passing outputs between f1–f4 with checkpoints on await, while leveraging Azure storage for state and gearing up for fan out and fan in.

Master fan-out/fan-in with Azure durable functions by fanning out f2 tasks from f1 in parallel, then summing and calling f3, and choose isolated worker over in-process due to decommissioning.

Explore building async HTTP APIs with durable functions, orchestrating long-running work. Expose a built-in get-status endpoint to check runtime status from running to completed using curl or Postman.

Explore the monitor pattern, the reverse of polling, where a durable function checks a job's status at polling intervals and exits on completion to trigger alerts for long-running tasks.

Explore a human interaction workflow for approval requests with 72-hour and 48-hour slas, automatic rejection on timeout, and actions triggered by approval events in an orchestrator workflow.

Explore aggregator stateful entities in Azure Durable Functions, maintaining and updating state across time with get, add, reset, and delete operations, and learn when to use durable entities for complexity.

Learn how durable entities provide stateful, atomic operations for bank accounts in Azure Functions, with get, add, reset, ensuring persistent, concurrency-safe state in a serverless app.

Demonstrate replay and checkpointing in durable functions using an orchestrator to ensure determinism, saving progress after awaits and replaying from the last checkpoint after restart.

Learn to implement robust Azure Durable Functions with retry options, configuring first retry interval and max attempts, using backoff and exception-based retry logic for HTTP or FTP transfers.