2 Using Azure: Azure Functions and Image Processing

Now that you have an idea why Azure is so popular and why it is a great choice for computing infrastructure, let us dive into a practical example of using Azure to solve a real problem of storing images from emails and compressing them. We will keep it simple, but that doesn’t mean it will lack in power and application options.

Relating knowledge to examples and implementations that are as close to real world as possible is, in my humble opinion, the best way to learn a technical topic, and cloud computing with Azure is no exception. Let’s build an application that follows just that principle.

2.1 Understanding the Problem

2.2 Creating the Architecture

2.2.1 What is a resource group?

2.2.2 Creating a resource group

2.2.3 Blob storage – the basics

2.2.4 Creating a storage account

2.2.5 Storage account – networking

2.2.6 Storage account – data protection

2.2.7 Creating a storage container

2.2.8 What is a Logic App?

2.2.9 Creating a Logic App

2.2.10 Logic App – triggers and connectors

2.2.11 Configuring a Logic App connector

2.2.12 Logic App operation – storing data from email to blob storage

2.2.13 Testing the Logic App workflow

2.2.14 What is an Azure Function?

2.2.15 Creating a storage container for resized images

2.2.16 Creating a Function App

2.2.17 Monitoring Function Apps

2.2.18 Creating an Azure Function

2.2.19 Adding integrations to an Azure Function

2.2.20 Writing code in a function

2.2.21 Referencing code libraries in Azure Functions

2.3 Exploring the Solution in Azure

2.3.1 Scaling

2.3.2 Performance

2.3.3 Fault Tolerance

2.3.4 This isn’t production

2.3.5 Cost savings

2.4 Deleting the Solution

2.5 Summary