Hello @Chuck Roberts ,
welcome to this moderated Azure community forum.
An Azure function is great to execute custom logic on Azure.
Azure Functions have a 'consumption plan' so you only pay for the compute you use.
Azure Functions are configured using 'application settings', a configuration section in the Azure portal and read by the Azure function on startup:
As an extra layer of security, the application setting can be filled with just a redirection to the actual settings, stored in a key vault. Check out this blog post with an example.
Regarding an alternative, check out Azure Logic Apps.
This is a no-code/low-code alternative capable of mailing, reading database information etc. It is specialized in user workflows.
If you want to work with data in flows, pipelines, check out Azure Data Factory as an no-code/low-code alternative. This is specialized in data workflows.
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