Serverless apps: Architecture, patterns, and Azure implementation

04/22/2020

6 minutes to read





In this article

EDITION v3.0 - Updated to Azure Functions v3

DOWNLOAD available at: https://aka.ms/serverlessbookpdf

PUBLISHED BY

Microsoft Developer Division, .NET, and Visual Studio product teams

A division of Microsoft Corporation

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Copyright © 2018-2020 by Microsoft Corporation

All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

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Some examples depicted herein are provided for illustration only and are fictitious. No real association or connection is intended or should be inferred.

Microsoft and the trademarks listed at https://www.microsoft.com on the "Trademarks" webpage are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

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All other marks and logos are property of their respective owners.

Author:

Jeremy Likness, Senior .NET Data Program Manager, Microsoft Corp.

Contributor:

Cecil Phillip, Senior Cloud Advocate, Microsoft Corp.

Editors:

Bill Wagner, Senior Content Developer, Microsoft Corp.

Maira Wenzel, Senior Content Developer, Microsoft Corp.

Participants and reviewers:

Steve Smith, Owner, Ardalis Services.

Introduction

Serverless is the evolution of cloud platforms in the direction of pure cloud native code. Serverless brings developers closer to business logic while insulating them from infrastructure concerns. It's a pattern that doesn't imply "no server" but rather, "less server." Serverless code is event-driven. Code may be triggered by anything from a traditional HTTP web request to a timer or the result of uploading a file. The infrastructure behind serverless allows for instant scale to meet elastic demands and offers micro-billing to truly "pay for what you use." Serverless requires a new way of thinking and approach to building applications and isn't the right solution for every problem. As a developer, you must decide:

What are the pros and cons of serverless?

Why should you consider serverless for your own applications?

How can you build, test, deploy, and maintain your serverless code?

Where does it make sense to migrate code to serverless in existing applications, and what is the best way to accomplish this transformation?

About this guide

This guide focuses on cloud native development of applications that use serverless. The book highlights the benefits and exposes the potential drawbacks of developing serverless apps and provides a survey of serverless architectures. Many examples of how serverless can be used are illustrated along with various serverless design patterns.

This guide explains the components of the Azure serverless platform and focuses specifically on implementation of serverless using Azure Functions. You'll learn about triggers and bindings as well as how to implement serverless apps that rely on state using durable functions. Finally, business examples and case studies will help provide context and a frame of reference to determine whether serverless is the right approach for your projects.

Evolution of cloud platforms

Serverless is the culmination of several iterations of cloud platforms. The evolution began with physical metal in the data center and progressed through Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).

Before the cloud, a discernible boundary existed between development and operations. Deploying an application meant answering myriad questions like:

What hardware should be installed?

How is physical access to the machine secured?

Does the data center require an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)?

Where are storage backups sent?

Should there be redundant power?

The list goes on and the overhead was enormous. In many situations, IT departments were forced to deal with incredible waste. The waste was due to over-allocation of servers as backup machines for disaster recovery and standby servers to enable scale-out. Fortunately, the introduction of virtualization technology (like Hyper-V) with Virtual Machines (VMs) gave rise to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Virtualized infrastructure allowed operations to set up a standard set of servers as the backbone, leading to a flexible environment capable of provisioning unique servers "on demand." More important, virtualization set the stage for using the cloud to provide virtual machines "as a service." Companies could easily get out of the business of worrying about redundant power or physical machines. Instead, they focused on the virtual environment.

IaaS still requires heavy overhead because operations is still responsible for various tasks. These tasks include:

Patching and backing up servers.

Installing packages.

Keeping the operating system up-to-date.

Monitoring the application.

The next evolution reduced the overhead by providing Platform as a Service (PaaS). With PaaS, the cloud provider handles operating systems, security patches, and even the required packages to support a specific platform. Instead of building a VM then configuring .NET and standing up Internet Information Services (IIS) servers, developers simply choose a "platform target" such as "web application" or "API endpoint" and deploy code directly. The infrastructure questions are reduced to:

What size services are needed?

How do the services scale out (add more servers or nodes)?

How do the services scale up (increase the capacity of hosting servers or nodes)?

Serverless further abstracts servers by focusing on event-driven code. Instead of a platform, developers can focus on a microservice that does one thing. The two key questions for building the serverless code are:

What triggers the code?

What does the code do?

With serverless, infrastructure is abstracted. In some cases, the developer no longer worries about the host at all. Whether or not an instance of IIS, Kestrel, Apache, or some other web server is running to manage web requests, the developer focuses on an HTTP trigger. The trigger provides the standard, cross-platform payload for the request. The payload not only simplifies the development process, but facilitates testing and in some cases, makes the code easily portable across platforms.

Another feature of serverless is micro-billing. It's common for web applications to host Web API endpoints. In traditional bare metal, IaaS and even PaaS implementations, the resources to host the APIs are paid for continuously. That means you pay to host the endpoints even when they aren't being accessed. Often you'll find one API is called more than others, so the entire system is scaled based on supporting the popular endpoints. Serverless enables you to scale each endpoint independently and pay for usage, so no costs are incurred when the APIs aren't being called. Migration may in many circumstances dramatically reduce the ongoing cost to support the endpoints.

What this guide doesn't cover

This guide specifically emphasizes architecture approaches and design patterns and isn't a deep dive into the implementation details of Azure Functions, Logic Apps, or other serverless platforms. This guide doesn't cover, for example, advanced workflows with Logic Apps or features of Azure Functions such as configuring Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS), applying custom domains, or uploading SSL certificates. These details are available through the online Azure Functions documentation.

Additional resources

Who should use the guide

This guide was written for developers and solution architects who want to build enterprise applications with .NET that may use serverless components either on premises or in the cloud. It's useful to developers, architects, and technical decision makers interested in:

Understanding the pros and cons of serverless development

Learning how to approach serverless architecture

Example implementations of serverless apps

How to use the guide

The first part of this guide examines why serverless is a viable option by comparing several different architecture approaches. It examines both the technology and development lifecycle, because all aspects of software development are impacted by architecture decisions. The guide then examines use cases and design patterns and includes reference implementations using Azure Functions. Each section contains additional resources to learn more about a particular area. The guide concludes with resources for walkthroughs and hands-on exploration of serverless implementation.

Send your feedback

The guide and related samples are constantly evolving, so your feedback is welcomed! If you have comments about how this guide can be improved, use the feedback section at the bottom of any page built on GitHub issues.