Azure Automation

Azure provides many different automation tools for three largely grouped purposes: deployment of resources, responding to external events, complex orchestration, and integration. In this blog, I will explore the tools for responding to external events, complex orchestration and integration automation methods as described on official Microsoft documentation. Namely, these services are called Azure Functions, Azure Automation, and Azure Logic Apps.

Azure Logic Apps gives developers two options: a graphics-friendly interface and JSON-based coding option. Most developers will have to resort to jumping between the two of these options as they will provide different benefits. As an example of an business use for implementing Azure Logic Apps, any Azure-native notification can be used for change in resource deployment. Let's say the stakeholders in a project need to be notified whenever the IP address allocation for deployed virtual network changes. By change, it could mean this virtual network was moved to a different resource group or subscription, maybe it means the CIDR range changed, maybe it means a new subnet was added or the virtual network was taken out completely. In any of these cases, there are tons of automation that can be implemented in Azure using Logic Apps, Functions and other Automation tools like Runbooks.

For more information on Azure Automation, check out https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/automation-services.