Azure Functions Newsletter – February 2024

[madhurabharadwaj]

Welcome to the February 2024 edition of Azure Functions newsletter! We'll share the latest news for Azure Functions here on the Apps on Azure blog.

Azure Functions monthly community live stream

Join us for our upcoming live stream on February 20, 2024, at 10:00 AM PST (18:00 UTC). Tune in to hear from Eamon O'Reilly, Lily Ma, and Madhura Bharadwaj as they discuss the latest releases in Azure Functions, provide insights into building intelligent apps with OpenAI, and unveil an exciting new feature in Durable Functions. Mark your calendars for this informative session!

Subscribe to the Azure Developers YouTube channel!

Try out the Azure Functions OpenAI extension: https://github.com/Azure/azure-functions-openai-extension 
Try out Distributed Tracing v2 for Durable Functions: https://aka.ms/durablefunc-dtv2 

Product News

Following is the list of new Azure Functions features released since October 15 2023 

Areas	Feature
Languages	GA: Support for local development on Apple Silicon Macs GA: Service Bus message settlement in isolated worker model for .NET GA: Performance optimizations for the isolated worker model in .NET GA: Support for .NET 8 in isolated worker model Preview: Support for Java 21 (Linux)
Durable Functions	GA: Stateful entities in Durable Functions on the isolated worker model for .NET Preview: Distributed tracing v2 for durable Functions Preview: New major version of the durable Functions extension

Retirements

Reminder! Check out the upcoming retirements for Azure Functions features. Follow the linked migration guides to upgrade your Functions Apps to a supported language and/or extension version.

Areas	Feature
Languages	Upgrade your Node.js 14 app to Node.js 18 or Node.js 20 before June 30 2024 Upgrade your Node.js 16 app to Node.js 18 or Node.js 20 before June 30 2024 Upgrade your Python 3.8 app to Python 3.9 or later before 14 October 2024
Extensions	Azure Functions Cosmos DB extension v3 will retire Aug 31 2024 Azure Functions Service Bus extension v4 will retire Mar 31 2025 See migration guides for more details: Cosmos DB extension, Service Bus extension. (For non .NET customers, upgrade to Extension Bundles v4 to be on the latest extension. For .NET customers, upgrade the extension NuGet packages to the latest extension)

Get notified when we publish future newsletters, subscribe to the Apps on Azure blog. Connect with the Azure Functions team on GitHub and Twitter.