Response from Microsoft through their Analyst Relations

[krishnan]

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Evaluation of Microsoft Azure Functions

Based on Cloud Provider Documentation and publicly available information

Created by Rishidot Research (www.rishidot.com) and released under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Microsoft Azure Functions: has_list: True Service Consumption:

• General Availability : True
• Self Service : True
• Pay Per Use Pricing : True
• Memory Sizing : True
• Language Support : C#, Javascript, F#

  +Java in preview

• Language Extensibility : False # Coming in the future

  The language extensibility framework is in preview, as part of the V2 runtime.

  There are language workers already written (but not released) by community folks, Python is in the works

• Open Source : True
• Multi Cloud Support : False

  Azure Functions itself extends the programming languages with annotations, but the bulk of the code is generic.

  Multi-cloud applications though can be achieved triggering functions out of custom events (e.g. using eventgrid),

  or having functions emit events to other cloud service

• Hybrid Cloud Support : True Application Deployment:
• Function Code Input Options : {Bitbucket, Github, Dropbox, VSTS, Onedrive, Git local repo, External repo like Git or Mercurial}
• Container Support : False

  Functions can run on Linux, in dedicated mode (not consumption), in this scenario you can bring your own container

  good blog post on this here: https://cmatskas.com/running-azure-functions-anywhere-with-the-power-of-containers/

• Binary Payload : True
• Browser Based Code Editor : True
• Visual Workflow Editor : True
• Event Sources : {Blob Storage, CosmosDB, Event Grid, Event Hubs, HTTP, Microsoft Graph Events, Queue Storage, Service Bus, Timer, Webhooks}
• Dependencies : {npm, NuGet}
• HTTP(S) Invocation : HTTP Trigger

  no need for an external API Gateway or API management product.

  At the same time it provides simple and handy API functionality with Functions Proxies, and it integrates with APIM

• Environment Variables : True
• Built-In Versioning : False
• Maximum Number of Functions Per Project/Namespace : No Published Limits
• Concurrent Executions : No Published Limits #User Controlled on App Services Plan
• Maximum Execution Time (in seconds) : 300

  configurable up to 600s

• Quota Increase : Not available in Consumption Plan
• Free API Gateway : False

  Azure Functions Proxies operaes on the same free grant of 1M executions per month, as functions itself

• High Availabilty : False

  Azure Functions runs on top of App Service and it provides the same level of high availability

• Persistent Data : True
• Streaming Support : True
• Warm Start Support : False

  Azure Functions also run on Dedicated mode (app service plan), in which case it can remain warm at all times

• Number Of Metrics : Not Available
• List of Metrics : {Requests, Exceptions, Traces, PerformanceMetrics, CustomEvents, CustomMetrics}
• Support For Custom Metrics : True Integrations:
• Supported Cloud Services : {Azure Blob storage, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Event Hub, Azure Mobile Apps, Azure Notification Hubs, Azure Queue storage, Azure Service Bus, Azure Table storage, Microsoft Visual Studio}
• Built in Logging : Azure Application Insights
• Built in Monitoring : Azure Application Insights
• Third Party Integrations Out Of The Box : True Security:
• Cloud Provider IAM Support : True
• Virtual Private Network Support : False

  Azure Functions running on Dedicated mode (App service plan) allows for Functions to communicate to resources inside a VPN, using point-to-site connectvity or Hybrid Connections

  Azure Functions also run on App Service Environments, allowing for fully hide the functions endpoint from the internet

• Compliance : SOC, HIPAA, PCI, ISO
• GDPR Compliance: Yes Documentation:
• Wiki (or equivalent) : True
• Howtos : True
• Examples/Use Cases : True
• Videos : True
• User Community : MSDN Forums
• API Documentation : True On-Premises Deployment:
• On-Premises Deployment : True
• Public Cloud Integration : True ...