Durable Functions Basics

Azure Durable Functions, also known as Durable Functions, is an extension of Azure Functions that allows us to write stateful and long-running workflows in a serverless environment. The purpose of Durable Functions is to simplify the development of complex, asynchronous, and orchestration-based applications by providing a framework for managing state and coordinating the execution of multiple functions.

These functions are especially useful for executing long-running tasks that require maintaining the state while the process is ongoing. For example, if we need to execute a complex ETL process with a large volume of data, a durable function might be a suitable tool to make it happen.

In this lesson, we will go over the basic components of a durable function. We will do so with the help of the interactive playground below. In this setup, we have a function with a standard HTTP trigger. Once an HTTP request is sent to it, it triggers an orchestrator that initiates the process. The orchestrator then executes three simple activities that log a specified name in the console.