This course will show practical applications of key Azure features to meet the programming and configuration challenges introduced by long-running tasks.
We'll start with Azure Batches and how you can use them to create large-scale, parallel, and high-performance apps in the Azure cloud. Then we'll go over Azure Queues and how they can add resiliency to your web applications. Next, you'll look at Webhooks and how they can address events in your cloud apps. Finally, we'll show you WebJobs and how they can deal with continuous processing tasks.
By the end of this course, you should be able to understand and apply these four Azure features to solve some of the challenges you face with long-running tasks, especially in high-performance computing applications.
Learning Objectives
- Create large-scale, parallel, and high-performance apps by using Azure Batches
- Build resilient apps by using Azure Queues
- Implement code to address application events by using Azure Webhooks
- Address continuous processing tasks by using Azure WebJobs
Intended Audience
- People pursuing the Microsoft AZ-203 certification
- IT professionals, web developers, DevOps administrators
Prerequisites
- Basic understanding of cloud concepts
- Familiarity with web programming
- Exposure to Azure configuration (Portal, CLI, or PowerShell)
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As an example, consider an application that is being used for warehousing in a supply chain. The customer may have placed an order but your warehousing application may need to watch a database and then wait to see if the status of any records has changed from ordered to pending shipment. Once a change is detected, then a second application may send instructions to ship the package.
But how can the second application monitor the status of the records in the first? Before the Azure feature of Webhooks became available, we would have needed to query the database on a regular basis. This technique is referred to as polling. It is quite easy to use the polling technique. However, polling can be quite demanding on computer resources.
As the internet evolved, many applications began implementing user-defined HTTP callbacks. Let's take a look at how this could work in our example. Using this technique, the first application would contact the second application whenever it had changes. This saves your second application from having to waste compute cycles polling for changes. This is referred to as a webhook.
When you create a webhook, you give an external resource a URL for your application. Whenever a change is made that requires your application to take action, the external resource issues an HTTP request to that URL.
Derrick is a content contributor and trainer for Microsoft cloud technologies like Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics 365. He works across North America and Europe to help companies and organizations with these technology shifts. Before that he has worn many hats but prefers to wear them one at a time.
When he is not night walking during his travels, you can find him on a bicycle path or performing guitar solos to an imaginary audience in his basement.