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Spencer Schneidenbach Exploring Serverless in .NET From Azure to AWS and beyond

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@schneidenbach [email protected]

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Why?

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What is “serverless”?

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https://www.cloud fl are.com/learning/serverless/what-is-serverless/ Serverless computing is a method of providing backend services on an as-used basis. Servers are still used, but a company that gets backend services from a serverless vendor is charged based on usage, not a fi xed amount of bandwidth or number of servers.

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The three major cloud providers 0 10 20 30 40 https://www.statista.com/chart/18819/worldwide-market-share-of-leading-cloud-infrastructure-service-providers/ % Marketshare ?

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The three major cloud providers 0 10 20 30 40 https://www.statista.com/chart/18819/worldwide-market-share-of-leading-cloud-infrastructure-service-providers/ % Marketshare

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The three major cloud providers 0 10 20 30 40 https://www.statista.com/chart/18819/worldwide-market-share-of-leading-cloud-infrastructure-service-providers/ % Marketshare

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My experience • 90% of what I do is in Microsoft Azure. • I have used Azure and AWS in production. Worked on entire serverless platforms in both Azure and AWS. • My big bias: delivery > perfection.

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What cloud providers probably think Service 1 Service 2 Service 3 Meaningful Overlap

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Reality

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What this talk is • Good general overview and walkthrough of my experience • De fi nitely developer-centric, with lots of architect-y opinions • Discussion on the two major serverless options: • “Turnkey” functions • Container hosting models

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What this talk ISN’T • A so-called “expert” preaching you about “the right way” • A recommendation on any particular cloud provider for .NET • Dogmatic • You may disagree with some things I say • I also cannot know everything

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What we will cover • In some depth • Azure Functions/AWS Lambdas/Google Cloud Functions • Azure Container Functions/AWS App Runner/AWS Fargate/Google Cloud Run • By mention only • Azure App Service/AWS Elastic Beanstalk/Google App Engine • Kubernetes stu f

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For each thing we will discuss • Development experience • Tooling - Visual Studio, Rider, .NET CLI, AWS CLI, GCloud CLI • Deployment • Monitoring • Maturing past “basic” functions • Nuance! (Or as much as I could add in)

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You can do great things with “the cloud”

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https://www.troyhunt.com/serverless-to-the-max-doing-big-things-for-small-dollars-with-cloud fl are-workers-and-azure-functions/

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All cloud providers have similar offerings. What do you value?

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@PHP_CEO

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“Friction Man”

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Testing methodology • Started with a brand new cloud account for each provider • Used the following tools • Visual Studio • Rider • dotnet CLI • AWS CLI • Google Cloud CLI

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Really basic things • Deploy a function with a contrived error condition • Run it 100 times • See what happens!

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Lessons learned • More nuance than I expected • Clouds have strengths and weaknesses • There’s friction everywhere - the question is, what friction is tolerable to you and your team?

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Azure

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Azure Serverless • Azure Functions (regular and premium) • Azure Container Apps • Azure App Service

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Azure Functions • Simple requests (HTTP, Event Grid, etc) • Great for event-based architectures and small bits of code

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@schneidenbach

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Azure Monitor/Application Insights • Comprehensive goodness out of the box • Comparatively expensive • …honestly I prefer third party vendors like DataDog

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Two execution paths for Azure Functions • In process - Azure Functions that execute inside of the Functions host process • Isolated - runs inside a worker process https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/dotnet-isolated-in-process-di ff erences

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In process vs isolated Feature/behavior In-process Isolated worker process Supported .NET versions Long Term Support (LTS) versions All supported versions + .NET Framework Core packages Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Functions Microsoft.Azure.Functions.Worker Microsoft.Azure.Functions.Worker.Sdk Durable Functions Supported Supported (public preview) HTTP trigger model types HttpRequest / ObjectResult HttpRequestData / HttpResponseData Dependency injection Supported Supported Middleware Not supported Supported Logging ILogger passed to the function ILogger via dependency injection ILogger/ILogger obtained from FunctionContext or via dependency injection Cancellation tokens Supported Supported Cold start times (Baseline) Additionally includes process launch https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/dotnet-isolated-in-process-di ff erences

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In process vs isolated

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Isolated woes

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Azure Functions (premium) • Can have pre-warmed instances, preventing cold starts • Minimum spend required, though https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-premium-plan?tabs=portal

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Premium elastic plan pricing https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-premium-plan?tabs=portal

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Azure Container Apps • Best of all possible worlds as you scale - more fl exible hosting option with less spend required during idle periods

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https://endjin.com/blog/2022/09/bye-bye-azure-functions-hello-azure-container-apps-part-1-introduction Like Azure Functions, ACA pricing is consumption-based and you have the option for your containers to scale down to zero if needed. Obviously this wouldn't help with the cold start issues we've covered above, but it's also possible to set a minimum number of replicas for your container, which would have much the same effect as the Premium Functions plan mentioned above. However, there's a potential advantage over the Premium Functions Plan; the notion of containers becoming inactive - meaning they are still provisioned but idle - in which state the cost is significantly lower. Azure Container Apps

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Premium Cloud “growth”

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Azure Summary • Azure Functions - great for small bits of code to respond to events and/or starting out. HTTP APIs as well… if you don’t mind the cold start. • Azure Functions Premium - great “next level” destination for Azure Functions if you need to help eliminate cold starts, but more expensive (obv) • This article describes spinning this up temporarily when anticipating tra ffi c spikes, then spinning it back down to normal Consumption after the work is done. (Example: https:// www.davepaquette.com/archive/2020/05/23/scaling-azure-functions-from-consumption- plan-to-premium-hosting-plan.aspx) • Azure Container Apps - gives more fl exibility for building scalable apps • Azure App Service - I use these for more general purpose web app hosting, especially if I need predictable pricing and easy, fl exible scale up, easy web con fi guration, etc. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-scale

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AWS

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Serverless options in AWS • AWS Lambda/AWS Serverless Lambdas • AWS App Runner/Fargate • AWS Elastic Beanstalk

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dotnet new -i Amazon.Lambda.Templates

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dotnet tool install -g Amazon.Lambda.Tools https://aws.amazon.com/cli/

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IAS

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IAS

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https://github.com/ysugimoto/aws-lambda-image/issues/153

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https://github.com/ysugimoto/aws-lambda-image/issues/153#issuecomment-910356865

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IAS

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Other hosted services • AWS Elastic Beanstalk • Like Azure App Service, but I have not heard anyone say a positive thing about it • AWS Fargate/App Runner/Elastic Kubernetes Service

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AWS Summary • Lambdas - similar to Azure Functions in pretty much every way • AWS Serverless Application using Lambdas - almost certainly the direction I would go • AWS App Runner - akin to Container Apps • AWS Fargate - lower level than App Runner • Great article about nuanced di ff erences btwn Fargate and App Runner: https://cloudonaut.io/fargate-vs-apprunner/ • AWS Elastic Beanstalk… kind of like App Service but apparently it’s way worse?

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“Honorable” mentions? • Provisioned concurrency • Do The “Jeremy” • Jeremy sez: he uses Serverless framework (https://www.serverless.com/) and aws-vault for dev work.

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Google Cloud

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Serverless options in Google Cloud • Cloud Functions • Cloud Run • App Engine

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⁉

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Nitpicky at best • Does not support .NET Framework • Not as widely adopted as the other cloud providers, duh

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Something really cool • https://shell.cloud.google.com/

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@schneidenbach

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@schneidenbach

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Something really cool • https://shell.cloud.google.com/

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GCS Summary • Cloud Functions - similar to Azure Functions and Lambdas in pretty much every way • Cloud Run - managed container system akin to Azure Container Apps/AWS App Runner • App Engine - generalized app hosting akin to App Service • Detailed cost comparison of Functions vs Run • https://medium.com/google-cloud/cloud-run-vs-cloud-functions-whats- the-lowest-cost-728d59345a2e

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The Conclusions Slide

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Initial Thoughts • Most of your cloud providers are going to have been chosen already • Your architecture should only be as complicated as it needs to be • Bias getting stu ff done > overthinking what scale you think you MIGHT need • Cloud costs are easy to lose control of - ensure you’re monitoring well. • https://www.troyhunt.com/how-i-got-pwned-by-my-cloud-costs/

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General suggestions • Azure Functions/AWS Lambdas/Google Functions for simple slices of functionality, especially when cold starts aren’t super critical. • LOVE it for event-driven stu ff . • All cloud providers have a way of “promoting” functions, mainly to eliminate cold starts and manage costs/resources better. You will probably know when you feel you need to do this. • Spencer’s case study

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@schneidenbach Azure AWS Google Basic Functions Azure Functions AWS Lambda/AWS Lambda Serverless Cloud Functions "Premium" Functions Azure Functions Premium Provisioned Concurrency* Cloud Run Minimum instances* Container abstractions Azure Container Apps AWS AppRunner Cloud Run Lower-level container abstractions Azure Container Instances AWS Fargate Cloud Run I guess? K8S aka The Big Time Azure Kubernetes Service Amazon EKS (Elastic K8S Service) Google Kubernetes Engine General App Host App Service Elastic Beanstalk App Engine * mainly good for eliminating cold starts and is pricey for what it is

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More resources • Serverless cost comparison • https://acloudguru.com/blog/engineering/serverless-showdown-aws- lambda-vs-azure-functions-vs-google-cloud-functions • Lots of links throughout the slide deck!

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Thank you! schneids.net @schneidenbach [email protected]