Summary

Completed

This module was about integrating data and services into your functions. We started with a quick tour of the binding types that show up when you add them to a function. Then, we looked at reading data from an Azure Cosmos DB by using an input binding. Azure Functions takes care of managing connection strings, and we saw how it's easy to read data in our code by using the binding. Finally, we focused our attention on writing data to different sources with the help of output bindings.

This journey is summarized in the following table, which shows the different bindings that you used in each of the units listed.

Learning Unit Triggers Input bindings Output bindings
Explore input and output binding types HTTP HTTP HTTP
Read data with input bindings HTTP HTTP
Azure Cosmos DB
HTTP
Write data with output bindings HTTP HTTP
Azure Cosmos DB
HTTP
Azure Cosmos DB
Azure Queue Storage

You can apply the approaches you learned here to add and test bindings in your functions. Here are a few interesting ideas to get more practice with bindings and to build on what you learned.

  • Create another function to read from Blob storage and use other input bindings that we didn't use in this module.

  • Create another function to write to more destinations by using other supported output binding types.

  • In the preceding unit, we introduced a queue and posted messages to it with an output binding. As a next step, consider adding another function that reads the messages in the queue and prints the MESSAGE TEXT to the console with console.log().

As we saw in this module, the Azure portal offers easy-to-use features to start building functions and connecting them to data and other services.

If you're interested in doing serverless integrations like these with visual workflows and little or no custom code, check out Azure Logic Apps as well.

Clean up

The sandbox automatically cleans up your resources when you're finished with this module.

When you're working in your own subscription, it's a good idea at the end of a project to identify whether you still need the resources you created. Resources that you leave running can cost you money. You can delete resources individually or delete the resource group to delete the entire set of resources.

Learn more

The following resources are related to the subjects covered in this module that you might find interesting:

Check your knowledge

1.

Which of the following statements describes an advantage of using bindings in your Azure Functions to access data sources and data sinks?

2.

What is the name of the file that contains function configuration data?

3.

How many triggers must a function have?