Overview

Durable Functions, an extension of Azure Functions, enables you to write stateful functions in a serverless environment. In this blog post, we will explain how they can help you solve complex orchestration problems, highlighting the prerequisites for using them and guiding you through how to get started.

The Functions are like regular Azure Functions but with some added benefits. They can maintain state across multiple executions, handle lolong-runningnd asynchronous operations, and reliably coordinate multiple functions. They use the Durable Task Framework, which implements the Event Sourcing pattern to persist in the state of your functions.

How Durable Functions Help

Durable Functions can help you simplify the development of complex workflows that involve multiple functions and external services. For example, you can use the extension to implement scenarios such as fan-out/fan-in, human interaction, approval workflows, monitoring, and retry policies. The extension also provides built-in resiliency and scalability, ensuring they can handle failures and restarts without losing state or duplicating work.

Durable Functions: Pre-requisites

Before diving in, you must have an Azure subscription and an Azure Storage account to use it. You must also install the Azure Functions Core Tools and the Durable Functions extension on your development machine. Furthermore, you can use any language supported by Azure Functions, such as C#, JavaScript, Python, or Java.

Conclusion

This powerful extension of Azure Functions allows you to write stateful and orchestration functions in a serverless environment. You can use this extension to implement complex workflows that involve multiple functions and external services with built-in resiliency and scalability. To delve deeper into this topic, you can check out the official documentation and some tutorials on creating and deploying your first Durable Function app.