Microsoft Azure

3.1.0

Microsoft Azure

The Azure adapter bootstraps a Spring Cloud Function context and channels function calls from the Azure framework into the user functions, using Spring Boot configuration where necessary. Azure Functions has quite a unique, but invasive programming model, involving annotations in user code that are specific to the platform. The easiest way to use it with Spring Cloud is to extend a base class and write a method in it with the @FunctionName annotation which delegates to a base class method.

This project provides an adapter layer for a Spring Cloud Function application onto Azure. You can write an app with a single @Bean of type Function and it will be deployable in Azure if you get the JAR file laid out right.

There is an AzureSpringBootRequestHandler which you must extend, and provide the input and output types as annotated method parameters (enabling Azure to inspect the class and create JSON bindings). The base class has two useful methods (handleRequest and handleOutput) to which you can delegate the actual function call, so mostly the function will only ever have one line.

Example:

public class FooHandler extends AzureSpringBootRequestHandler<Foo, Bar> {
	@FunctionName("uppercase")
	public Bar execute(@HttpTrigger(name = "req", methods = {HttpMethod.GET,
			HttpMethod.POST}, authLevel = AuthorizationLevel.ANONYMOUS) HttpRequestMessage<Optional<Foo>> request,
		ExecutionContext context) {
		return handleRequest(request.getBody().get(), context);
	}
}

This Azure handler will delegate to a Function<Foo,Bar> bean (or a Function<Publisher<Foo>,Publisher<Bar>>). Some Azure triggers (e.g. @CosmosDBTrigger) result in a input type of List and in that case you can bind to List in the Azure handler, or String (the raw JSON). The List input delegates to a Function with input type Map<String,Object>, or Publisher or List of the same type. The output of the Function can be a List (one-for-one) or a single value (aggregation), and the output binding in the Azure declaration should match.

If your app has more than one @Bean of type Function etc. then you can choose the one to use by configuring function.name. Or if you make the @FunctionName in the Azure handler method match the function name it should work that way (also for function apps with multiple functions). The functions are extracted from the Spring Cloud FunctionCatalog so the default function names are the same as the bean names.

Accessing Azure ExecutionContext

Some time there is a need to access the target execution context provided by Azure runtime in the form of com.microsoft.azure.functions.ExecutionContext. For example one of such needs is logging, so it can appear in the Azure console.

For that purpose Spring Cloud Function will register ExecutionContext as bean in the Application context, so it could be injected into your function. For example

@Bean
public Function<Foo, Bar> uppercase(ExecutionContext targetContext) {
	return foo -> {
		targetContext.getLogger().info("Invoking 'uppercase' on " + foo.getValue());
		return new Bar(foo.getValue().toUpperCase());
	};
}

Normally type-based injection should suffice, however if need to you can also utilise the bean name under which it is registered which is targetExecutionContext.

Notes on JAR Layout

You don’t need the Spring Cloud Function Web at runtime in Azure, so you can exclude this before you create the JAR you deploy to Azure, but it won’t be used if you include it, so it doesn’t hurt to leave it in. A function application on Azure is an archive generated by the Maven plugin. The function lives in the JAR file generated by this project. The sample creates it as an executable jar, using the thin layout, so that Azure can find the handler classes. If you prefer you can just use a regular flat JAR file. The dependencies should not be included.

Build file setup

In order to run Spring Cloud Function applications on Microsoft Azure, you can leverage the Maven plugin offered by the cloud platform provider.

In order to use the adapter plugin for Maven, add the plugin dependency to your pom.xml file:

<dependencies>
	<dependency>
		<groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
		<artifactId>spring-cloud-function-adapter-azure</artifactId>
	</dependency>
</dependencies>

Then, configure the plugin. You will need to provide Azure-specific configuration for your application, specifying the resourceGroup, appName and other optional properties, and add the package goal execution so that the function.json file required by Azure is generated for you. Full plugin documentation can be found in the plugin repository.

<plugin>
	<groupId>com.microsoft.azure</groupId>
	<artifactId>azure-functions-maven-plugin</artifactId>
	<configuration>
		<resourceGroup>${functionResourceGroup}</resourceGroup>
		<appName>${functionAppName}</appName>
	</configuration>
	<executions>
		<execution>
			<id>package-functions</id>
			<goals>
				<goal>package</goal>
			</goals>
		</execution>
	</executions>
</plugin>

You will also have to ensure that the files to be scanned by the plugin can be found in the Azure functions staging directory (see the plugin repository for more details on the staging directory and it’s default location).

You can find the entire sample pom.xml file for deploying Spring Cloud Function applications to Microsoft Azure with Maven here.

As of yet, only Maven plugin is available. Gradle plugin has not been created by the cloud platform provider.

Build

./mvnw -U clean package

Running the sample

You can run the sample locally, just like the other Spring Cloud Function samples:

and curl -H "Content-Type: text/plain" localhost:8080/api/uppercase -d '{"value": "hello foobar"}'.

You will need the az CLI app (see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-create-first-java-maven for more detail). To deploy the function on Azure runtime:

$ az login
$ mvn azure-functions:deploy

On another terminal try this: curl https://<azure-function-url-from-the-log>/api/uppercase -d '{"value": "hello foobar!"}'. Please ensure that you use the right URL for the function above. Alternatively you can test the function in the Azure Dashboard UI (click on the function name, go to the right hand side and click "Test" and to the bottom right, "Run").

The input type for the function in the Azure sample is a Foo with a single property called "value". So you need this to test it with something like below:

{
  "value": "foobar"
}

The Azure sample app is written in the "non-functional" style (using @Bean). The functional style (with just Function or ApplicationContextInitializer) is much faster on startup in Azure than the traditional @Bean style, so if you don’t need @Beans (or @EnableAutoConfiguration) it’s a good choice. Warm starts are not affected.