Azure Functions vs Kubernetes

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Decisions about Azure Functions and Kubernetes
Simon Reymann
Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH · | 30 upvotes · 5.6M views

Our whole DevOps stack consists of the following tools:

  • GitHub (incl. GitHub Pages/Markdown for Documentation, GettingStarted and HowTo's) for collaborative review and code management tool
  • Respectively Git as revision control system
  • SourceTree as Git GUI
  • Visual Studio Code as IDE
  • CircleCI for continuous integration (automatize development process)
  • Prettier / TSLint / ESLint as code linter
  • SonarQube as quality gate
  • Docker as container management (incl. Docker Compose for multi-container application management)
  • VirtualBox for operating system simulation tests
  • Kubernetes as cluster management for docker containers
  • Heroku for deploying in test environments
  • nginx as web server (preferably used as facade server in production environment)
  • SSLMate (using OpenSSL) for certificate management
  • Amazon EC2 (incl. Amazon S3) for deploying in stage (production-like) and production environments
  • PostgreSQL as preferred database system
  • Redis as preferred in-memory database/store (great for caching)

The main reason we have chosen Kubernetes over Docker Swarm is related to the following artifacts:

  • Key features: Easy and flexible installation, Clear dashboard, Great scaling operations, Monitoring is an integral part, Great load balancing concepts, Monitors the condition and ensures compensation in the event of failure.
  • Applications: An application can be deployed using a combination of pods, deployments, and services (or micro-services).
  • Functionality: Kubernetes as a complex installation and setup process, but it not as limited as Docker Swarm.
  • Monitoring: It supports multiple versions of logging and monitoring when the services are deployed within the cluster (Elasticsearch/Kibana (ELK), Heapster/Grafana, Sysdig cloud integration).
  • Scalability: All-in-one framework for distributed systems.
  • Other Benefits: Kubernetes is backed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), huge community among container orchestration tools, it is an open source and modular tool that works with any OS.
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Pros of Azure Functions
Pros of Kubernetes
  • 13
    Pay only when invoked
  • 10
    Great developer experience for C#
  • 8
    Multiple languages supported
  • 6
    Great debugging support
  • 4
    Can be used as lightweight https service
  • 3
    Costo
  • 3
    Easy scalability
  • 2
    Poor developer experience for C#
  • 2
    Event driven
  • 2
    Azure component events for Storage, services etc
  • 2
    WebHooks
  • 162
    Leading docker container management solution
  • 127
    Simple and powerful
  • 104
    Open source
  • 75
    Backed by google
  • 57
    The right abstractions
  • 24
    Scale services
  • 19
    Replication controller
  • 10
    Permission managment
  • 7
    Cheap
  • 7
    Simple
  • 7
    Supports autoscaling
  • 4
    No cloud platform lock-in
  • 4
    Self-healing
  • 4
    Reliable
  • 3
    Quick cloud setup
  • 3
    Open, powerful, stable
  • 3
    Scalable
  • 3
    Promotes modern/good infrascture practice
  • 2
    Custom and extensibility
  • 2
    Cloud Agnostic
  • 2
    Captain of Container Ship
  • 2
    A self healing environment with rich metadata
  • 2
    Runs on azure
  • 2
    Backed by Red Hat
  • 1
    Golang
  • 1
    Expandable
  • 1
    Sfg
  • 1
    Everything of CaaS
  • 1
    Easy setup
  • 1
    Gke

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Cons of Azure Functions
Cons of Kubernetes
  • 1
    No persistent (writable) file system available
  • 1
    Poor support for Linux environments
  • 1
    Sporadic server & language runtime issues
  • 1
    Not suited for long-running applications
  • 15
    Steep learning curve
  • 15
    Poor workflow for development
  • 8
    Orchestrates only infrastructure
  • 4
    High resource requirements for on-prem clusters
  • 2
    Too heavy for simple systems
  • 1
    Additional vendor lock-in (Docker)
  • 1
    More moving parts to secure
  • 1
    Additional Technology Overhead

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What is Azure Functions?

Azure Functions is an event driven, compute-on-demand experience that extends the existing Azure application platform with capabilities to implement code triggered by events occurring in virtually any Azure or 3rd party service as well as on-premises systems.

What is Kubernetes?

Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.

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What tools integrate with Azure Functions?
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What are some alternatives to Azure Functions and Kubernetes?
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda is a compute service that runs your code in response to events and automatically manages the underlying compute resources for you. You can use AWS Lambda to extend other AWS services with custom logic, or create your own back-end services that operate at AWS scale, performance, and security.
Serverless
Build applications comprised of microservices that run in response to events, auto-scale for you, and only charge you when they run. This lowers the total cost of maintaining your apps, enabling you to build more logic, faster. The Framework uses new event-driven compute services, like AWS Lambda, Google CloudFunctions, and more.
Google Cloud Functions
Construct applications from bite-sized business logic billed to the nearest 100 milliseconds, only while your code is running
Cloud Functions for Firebase
Cloud Functions for Firebase lets you create functions that are triggered by Firebase products, such as changes to data in the Realtime Database, uploads to Cloud Storage, new user sign ups via Authentication, and conversion events in Analytics.
Effe
Effe is an extremely simple building block with which to build a "server-less" architecture. This is a building block, operates on the level of a single lambda function.
See all alternatives