We are pleased to announce the public preview launch of the Dapr extension and the seamless integration with Azure Functions for cloud-native services hosted on Azure Container Apps. These capabilities enable functions to seamlessly interact with Dapr, facilitating the development of cloud-native applications. Azure Functions on Azure Container Apps was launched in public preview in May 2023 which enables you to quickly build event driven, cloud-native apps, with the flexibility to run Functions along with other microservices, APIs, websites, workflows or any container hosted components. With this seamless integration cloud native microservices can leverage DAPR to simplify the development of distributed applications by abstracting away the challenges in building resilient, scalable, and secure cloud-native systems.
The DAPR extension for Azure Functions is optimized for Azure Functions on Azure container apps plans. In addition, the extension can also be used in other environments that supports Dapr and Azure Functions like AKS, Kubernetes or self-hosted mode.
Azure Functions is a serverless solution that offers an event driven compute experience, integrated programming model and allows you write code in the language of your choice. You can connect other services without hard-coding integrations for faster development using the triggers and bindings that comes with Azure Functions extensions.
Dapr is an open source, Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) project and the foundational microservices building block for Azure Container Apps. The DAPR extension for Azure Functions, on Azure Container Apps platform can provide:
- Essential microservices capabilities powered by Dapr and consumed via native Functions programming model.
- Simplified abstractions to increase developer productivity for practicing event-driven architecture or microservices patterns such as fault-tolerance.
- Managed Dapr infrastructure without frictions for Functions audiences.
DAPR Extension Building blocks:
Dapr extension for Azure Functions scenarios:
This new extension allows you to more easily pair the Azure Functions programming model with capabilities from Dapr. or example, a public facing front end function http trigger api can securely invoke a backend Dapr API managed by Dapr directly within the functions programming model like below. The DAPR capabilities are extended as Triggers and Bindings to the Function
Enable Dapr from Azure Functions on Azure Container Apps:
Front end Azure Function Http Trigger enabled with Dapr using Service Invocation Output binding:
Function App Settings to be configured:
“Appid” : “<appid>”
“Methodname” : “<serviceinvokemethodname>”
Service Invocation Trigger
Function App Settings to be configured:
“StatestoreName” : “<statestorename>
“DAPR_APP_PORT” : “<DAPR APP port>”
Other scenarios include keeping some persistent and flexible state alongside your function and create /retrieve state managed by Dapr directly within the function app or use Dapr extension to publish and subscribe to topics between functions.
DAPR Extension for Azure Function Triggers
Azure Function triggers cause a function to run. A trigger defines how a function is invoked and a function must have exactly one trigger. Triggers have associated data, which is often provided as the payload of the function.
|
Trigger Type |
Description |
|
Trigger on a Dapr input binding |
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Trigger on a Dapr service invocation |
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Trigger on a Dapr topic subscription |
DAPR extension for Azure Function Bindings
Azure Function bindings is a way of declaratively connecting another resource to the function; bindings may be connected as Input Bindings, Output Bindings, or both. Data from bindings is provided to the function as parameters.
|
Binding Type |
Direction |
Description |
|
Input |
Pull in Dapr state for an execution |
|
|
Input |
Pull in Dapr secrets for an execution |
|
|
Output |
Save a value to Dapr state |
|
|
Output |
Invoke another Dapr app |
|
|
Output |
Publish a message to a Dapr topic |
|
|
Output |
Send a value to a Dapr output binding |
With this new extension, you can now bring both together for serverless and event-driven apps that can use the growing set of capabilities Dapr provides. Developers, teams, and organizations can use these tools to build functions that use a powerful set of capabilities with little code. You can get started today with the extension, which is fully open source on GitHub.
Learn more:
Dapr Extension for Azure Functions | Microsoft Learn
Dapr Extension for interacting with Dapr APIs from an Azure Function (github.com)
Quickstart to deploy Azure Functions and Dapr on ACA using azd