Azure Serverless Computing - Architecture, Advantages and Tools

Serverless computing enables users to build their applications faster by removing the need for them to handle the infrastructure. When you use this technology, you can take your mind off infrastructure-related things. It is beneficial for managing real-life apps, too. Server computing is invisible to the user but does its tasks efficiently. The user has to pay only for the resources they consume while running the application, which means users do not pay when the app is idle.

What is Serverless Computing? 

Serverless computing enables developers to build applications faster by eliminating the need for them to manage infrastructure. With serverless applications, the cloud service provider automatically provisions, scales, and manages the infrastructure required to run the code.

In understanding the definition of serverless computing, it’s important to note that servers are still running the code. The serverless name comes from the fact that the tasks associated with infrastructure provisioning and management are invisible to the developer. This approach enables developers to increase their focus on the business logic and deliver more value to the core of the business. Serverless computing helps teams increase their productivity and bring products to market faster, and it allows organizations to better optimize resources and stay focused on innovation.

What does Serverless Computing do?

Before we start with Microsoft Azure Serverless Computing, we start with the basics. What is Serverless Computing? It is quite an excellent way to create your application. It's of great help to developers as it allows the user to innovate the code, whereas Serverless computing takes care of everything related to servers. It can accommodate any flexibility to fulfil the needs of developers.

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Read More about What Serverless Computing and Architectures

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Which are the Best Servers in Serverless Computing?

The following are the best servers for serverless computing:

1. AWS Lambda: AWS Lambda was first introduced in November 2014. It is an event-driven, serverless computing platform developed by Amazon.com as a part of Amazon Web Services. AWS is a computing service that runs code in response to events and automatically manages the computing resources required by that code. 

2. Microsoft Azure: Microsoft Azure is mainly referred to as Azure. Microsoft developed a cloud computing service for testing, building, deploying, and managing applications and services through Microsoft-managed data centres.

What's the Benefit of using Serverless Computing?

Listed below are the top benefits of Serverless Computing:

• Avoid the burden of managing servers. 

  With the help of this technology, you no longer have to waste time managing servers; you can devote more time to business logic than administrative tasks. This results in deploying code and watching it run efficiently.

• Scale according to your needs 

  It can scale from none to thousands of concurrent functions within seconds, which is helpful in near-real-time apps.

• Only pay for resources you use
  This computing allows you to pay for the services you've used by running your code; allocation of the services happens as soon as the deployment finishes. You pay only for the resources used by your app.

Why choose Azure Serverless Computing?

It helps the user build a serverless app, helps the developer focus only on business goals and make an efficient app, and allows them to deploy the app faster in the market.

• Helps Boost Productivity

  Azure Serverless Computing provides Local debugging in Visual Studio, Visual debug history, deployment slot, and many more. A developer can use these to maximise their efficiency.

• Helps create endless Connections

  Azure can accommodate Modern apps of any kind by stitching together many functionalities from various sources.

• Helps Develop Intelligent Apps Azure has built-in intelligence that allows all developers who want their apps to be innovative. Azure can easily enable the user's code to use machine learning and cognitive services.

Security And Access Control 

Azure Active Directory provides developers with the ability to gain access to resources securely and manage their serverless apps.

A few more benefits are as follows

• Cloud Messaging

• Workflow orchestration

• API management

• Analytics

• Intelligence

Microsoft Azure Serverless Architecture 

Fig 1: Microsoft Serverless Architecture 

1. Browser (Client)

• The user initiates a request from the browser.

• Before accessing the app, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is applied via Azure AD or similar service.

• The request is passed through a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to improve performance and security.

2. Web Apps (Frontend/Backend)

• After authentication, the user interacts with Web Apps hosted on Azure App Service (a serverless Paas).

• These apps handle front-end UI and some backend logic.

3. Backend Services (Data + Cache)

Web apps interact with backend services like:

• Search: Azure Cognitive Search or similar for fast search capabilities.

• SQL DB: Azure SQL Database for structured data storage.

• Blob Storage: Stores unstructured data like images, videos, documents.

• Redis Cache: Azure Cache for Redis improves performance with in-memory data storage.

4. Queue Storage

• The web apps place tasks or messages into Azure Queue Storage.

• This ensures asynchronous processing and decouples frontend from backend logic.

5. Functions

• Azure Functions (FaaS) are triggered by queue messages.

• They execute backend logic (e.g., payment processing, data transformation) in a scalable, event-driven manner.

6. Third Party Payment (Pretend)

• Functions may call external services like third-party payment providers (represented here as “pretend”) to complete transactions or other operations.

What are the Advantages of Azure Serverless Computing?

Below are the advantages of Microsoft Azure:

1. Increase developer velocity
   Microsoft Azure Serverless helps reduce the time spent on tasks unrelated to the business's core by allowing developers to not think much about infrastructure provisioning and management. It helps deploy the function/application faster with its developer-friendly APIs, ready-to-use machine learning, low-code/no-code services, and cognitive models.

2. Boost Team Performance
   It helps improve the team's agility and performance by offering a fully managed platform to build, deploy, and operate applications. It also helps manage the applications by providing intelligent services for monitoring and analysis tools provided by Azure.

3. Improve Organisational Impact
   Azure's solutions help accelerate time to market and clear the path to innovation and new revenue opportunities. It also helps reduce the total cost of infrastructure and ownership and minimise risk through intelligent security management and advanced threat protection.

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Developer Tools and Services Provided by Microsoft Azure 

Listed below are the tools and services Azure offers.

Computation Services 

• Serverless Kubernetes

  Azure Serverless helps provide pods elastically in container instances that kick start in seconds without managing additional compute resources. It provides services for orchestration capabilities of AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service) and AKS virtual nodes to create serverless. Both of these are made using the open-source Virtual Kubelet project. It helps with event-driven auto-scaling to users' AKS clusters by adding KEDA. Download the use case AIOps for Monitoring Kubernetes and Serverless.

• Serverless functions
  It helps execute code in any language. The user can scale the deployed application on demand and pay only for the time the code is executed or for the time the services are being used by the application implemented.

• Serverless Application Environments
  Azure App Service helps run and scale any API application on the platform of the user's choice in a fully managed environment.

Workflow and Integration 

• Serverless Workflow Orchestration
  It is helpful to integrate data and apps instead of writing complex glue code. Uses Azure Logic Apps to create serverless workflows

• Serverless API Management
  Azure serverless enables Azure API Management to publish, secure, transform, maintain, and monitor APIS. 

• Serverless Messaging
  It is used to simplify event-based application scenarios with Azure Event Grid.

DevOps and Developer Tools 

• CI/CD for Serverless
  Azure DevOps provides unlimited, cloud-hosted private git repos. It offers many more functions, including adding automatic package management and so on.

• App Development Tools
  It provides tools to build, run, and debug serverless applications using Azure's developer tools. 

AI & Machine Learning for Serverless 

• Cognitive Computing
  It helps to enable user-serverless apps to see, hear, speak, understand, and interpret users' needs by using Azure Cognitive Services through natural communication methods.

• Conversation Bots
  Azure Bot Service helps build intelligent bots that interact naturally with users through various channels, such as text/SMS, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Office 365, and Twitter.

• Machine Learning Models
  One can deploy models on Azure Machine Learning from the cloud to the edge.

Database Services 

• Azure Serverless Database
  Azure Cosmos DB can be used for the user of the app build for scalable, globally distributed, multi-model database service. Also, Read Serverless Solution for Big Data, and Data Lake

Storage Services 

• Azure Serverless Storage
  It can be used for massively scalable storage of unstructured data. 

Monitoring Services 

• Azure Serverless Monitoring
  As serverless eliminates the traditional infrastructure, debugging Azure provides the right instrumentation. Azure Monitor helps gain observability to the user into their serverless apps.

Analytics Serverless 

• Azure Serverless Analytics
  Azure supports running massive parallel real-time analytics on multiple streams of data, including IoT, using Azure Stream Analytics. The Data is processed on demand, and the user pays per job. Building Real-time dashboards is quick with Microsoft Power BI for live command and control views.

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Explore here - The Complete Guide to AWS Serverless Computing

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AWS Vs Azure Serverless

Feature/Aspect	AWS (Amazon Web Services)	Azure (Microsoft Azure)
Core Serverless Offering	AWS Lambda	Azure Functions
Cold Start Time	Low (optimized with provisioned concurrency)	Moderate to low (improved with Premium Plan)
Supported Languages	Node.js, Python, Java, Go, Ruby, .NET, PowerShell, Custom Runtime	C#, JavaScript, Python, Java, PowerShell, TypeScript, Custom Handlers
Execution Duration Limit	15 minutes	60 minutes (with Premium Plan)
Scaling	Automatic, nearly unlimited	Automatic, with better scaling in Premium Plan
Integrated Services	Deep integration with AWS ecosystem (DynamoDB, S3, SNS, etc.)	Deep integration with Azure services (Blob Storage, Cosmos DB, etc.)
Trigger Types	Over 200 sources, including API Gateway, S3, DynamoDB, EventBridge	HTTP, Event Grid, Service Bus, Cosmos DB, Blob Storage
Monitoring & Debugging	CloudWatch, X-Ray	Azure Monitor, App Insights
Pricing Model	Pay-per-use (invocations, duration, memory)	Pay-per-use (executions, duration), with Premium Plans
Development Tools	AWS SAM, Serverless Framework, Cloud9	Visual Studio, Azure CLI, VS Code Extensions
Deployment Options	SAM, CloudFormation, Terraform	ARM Templates, Bicep, Azure DevOps
Security & IAM	IAM roles and policies	Azure RBAC, Managed Identities
Local Testing	AWS SAM CLI, LocalStack	Azure Functions Core Tools

The Road Ahead in Serverless Computing

Microsoft Azure Serverless Computing delivers more value to businesses by reducing the time, money, and resources spent on infrastructure-related needs. By using fully managed Azure serverless solutions, the company gains developers increased productivity, optimal resource use, and faster innovation.

• Quick Read, The Guide to Serverless Security
• Learn About How to Build Serverless Applications on Azure.