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Azure Functions 3.0, for Serverless Cloud Computing, Goes Live
Microsoft announced Azure Functions 3.0, its event-driven, serverless cloud computing runtime, has reached version 3.0, ready for production -- with a catch.
The catch is that while the go-live, production-ready release has shipped, it won't be the default version for developers to use until more work is done.
"While the runtime is now ready for production, and most of the tooling and performance optimizations are rolling out soon, there are still some tooling improvements to come before we announce Functions 3.0 as the default for new apps (see the progress of known tooling gaps)" Microsoft said in a Dec. 9 blog post. "We plan to announce Functions 3.0 as the default version for new apps in January 2020."
Azure Functions, like AWS Lambda on the Amazon cloud and the Google Cloud Platform counterpart, allows for code constructs to be set up -- without the need to provision specific servers -- in order to be run, typically, in response to events.
While still not ready for default status, new capabilities and functionality added to this release include support for the newly released .NET Core 3.1 -- a LTS (long-term support) release -- and Node 12.
Until v3.0 is deemed to be default-worthy, Micrsoft provided the following list of work items its tracking before the January general availability release date:
- PowerShell functions in 3.x are rolling out the week of Dec 9.
- Durable Functions written in JavaScript will not work until the next Durable Functions release.
- Visual Studio will create apps in ~2 by default. They should create in ~3 by default when we GA in January.
- The Azure Portal will create apps in ~2 by default. They should create in ~3 when we GA in January.
- The Azure CLI will create apps in ~2. They should create in ~3 by default and allow a version flag when we GA in January.
- There is no version toggle for apps deployed to Linux in the Azure portal. You will need to manually modify the FUNCTIONS_EXTENSION_VERSION to ~3 to move to 3.x.
- Azure Functions deployed to Azure Functions premium plan in Linux may need to also update the LinuxFxVersion to leverage 3.x functions.
"Users running on earlier versions of Azure Functions will continue to be supported and we're not deprecating either 1.0 or 2.0 at this time," Microsoft said. "Customers running Azure Functions targeting 1.0 or 2.0 will also continue to receive security updates and patches moving forward -- to both the Azure Functions runtime and the underlying .NET runtime -- for apps running in Azure. Whenever there's a major version deprecation, we plan to provide notice at least a year in advance for users to migrate their apps to a newer version."
More information on Azure Functions is available in the documentation.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.