Exercise - Publish the function to Azure

  • 12 minutes

The app and Azure Functions are now complete and running locally. In this unit, you'll publish the function to Azure to run in the cloud.

You'll publish your function from Visual Studio. This is a great way to get started for proof-of-concepts, prototypes, and learning, but for a production-quality app you should not use this method. You should use some form of CI-based deployment. You can read more about doing this in the Azure Functions Deployment docs.

Publishing your app to Azure

Azure Functions can be published to Azure from inside Visual Studio.

  1. Stop the local Azure Functions runtime if it's still running from the previous unit.

  2. Right-click on the ImHere.Functions app in the solution explorer and select Publish....

    Screenshot that shows how to choose to publish a Functions app.

  3. From the Publish dialog, select Azure, and then select Next.

    Screenshot that shows Azure selected for the Publish target.

  4. For the Specific Target, select Azure Functions App (Windows). Select Next.

    Screenshot that shows the Azure Functions App selected for the Publish specific target.

  5. Sign in to your Azure account.

  6. Select the + button next to Function Apps to create a new Azure Function.

  7. Enter a name for your app.

  8. Select your Subscription, Resource Group, Plan Type, Location, and Azure Storage.

  9. Select Create to provision all the resources on Azure and publish your Azure Functions app.

    Screenshot that shows how to create the App Service.

  10. You might be asked if you want to update the functions version on Azure. If this dialog appears, select Yes to ensure your function app is published with the latest Azure Functions runtime version.

    Screenshot that shows the update Azure Functions dialog.

Provisioning will take a couple of minutes to complete. The following resources will be provisioned:

  • A storage account to store the files needed for the Azure Functions app
  • An App Service plan to manage the compute resources needed by the Azure Functions app
  • The App Service that runs the Azure Functions

The function will now be published and available to call at https://<your-app-name>.azurewebsites.net/api/SendLocation.

Configuring your app

When the Azure Functions was running locally, it was using Twilio credentials that were stored in a local.settings.json file. As the name suggests, this file is for local settings, not Azure settings. Before the Azure Functions can be called inside Azure, the TwilioAccountSid and TwilioAuthToken settings need to be configured.

  1. From the Publish tab, select the ellipsis (...) next to Hosting and select Manage Azure App Service Settings.

    Screenshot that shows the Manage Azure App Service Settings option.

  2. The Application Settings dialog will show application settings with both a local and remote value - the local coming from your local.settings.json file, and the remote value is the one your function will use when it's hosted in Azure. Copy the values from the Local to the Remote boxes for the TwilioAccountSid and TwilioAuthToken values.

    Screenshot that shows the Twilio credentials in the Application Settings.

  3. Select OK. This will publish the values to the Azure Functions app.

Pointing the mobile app to Azure

  1. From the Publish tab, copy the Site URL using the Copy to clipboard button next to the value.

    Screenshot that shows how to copy the site U R L from the publish tab.

  2. Open the MainViewModel from the ImHere project.

  3. Update the value of the baseUrl field to be the site URL copied from the Publish tab.

Test it out

  1. Set the ImHere.UWP app as the startup app and run it.

  2. Enter a phone number and select the Send Location button.

  3. You should receive the location as an SMS message.

  4. If you get back a Service Unavailable error, check what version of the "Microsoft.Azure.WebJobs.Extensions.Twilio" NuGet package your functions app is using, it should be 3.0.0-rc1.

Summary

In this unit, you learned how to publish an Azure Functions project to Azure from inside Visual Studio and configure application settings.