Azure Functions 101

Architecture types

Traditionally, we deploy APIs on web servers in the cloud so they can do something after an HTTP, Web Socket, or RPC call. Historically, for .NET APIs, we had IIS and Kestrel web servers.

An API can have multiple endpoints, and in big companies, they are used to get the quite big, so-called monoliths.

A monolith, like a lasagna, is made up of layers that are tightly interwoven. We can’t easily remove one layer without disturbing the others.

In the last 15 years, big companies jumped on the microservices bandwagon. This architecture splits business logic across different APIs that can scale independently regarding performance and development. Microservices changed how cloud software was developed for the better, but not without its downsides: cross-domain transaction complexity.

However, these services are still web servers that require an infrastructure; they can crash and die, and the scaling needs to be handled. For these reasons, Kubernetes was born and became the ...