At the recent Connect() event, Microsoft announced the public preview of Python support in Azure Functions. Developers can build functions using Python 3.6, based upon the open-source Functions 2.0 runtime, and publish them to a "consumption" plan.
Since the general availability of Azure Function runtime 2.0, reported earlier in October on InfoQ, support for Python has been one of the top requests and was available through a private preview. Now it is generally available, and developers can start building functions useful for data manipulation, machine learning, scripting, and automation scenarios.
The Azure runtime 2.0 has a language worker model, providing support for non-.NET languages such as Java, and Python. Hence, developers can import existing .py scripts and modules, and start writing functions. Furthermore, with the requirement.txt file, developers can configure additional dependencies for pip.
Source: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/taking-a-closer-look-at-python-support-for-azure-functions/
With triggers and bindings available in the Azure Function programming model, developers can configure an event that will trigger the function execution and any data sources that the function needs to orchestrate with. According to Asavari Tayal, program manager of the Azure Functions team at Microsoft, the preview release will support bindings to HTTP requests, timer events, Azure Storage, Cosmos DB, Service Bus, Event Hubs, and Event Grid. Once configured, developers can quickly retrieve data from these bindings or write back using the method attributes of your entry point function.
Developers familiar with Python do not have to learn any new tooling; they can debug and test functions locally using a Mac, Linux, or Windows machine. With the Azure Functions Core Tools (CLI), developers can get started quickly using trigger templates and publish directly to Azure, while the Azure platform will handle the build and configuration. Furthermore, developers can also use the Azure Functions extension for Visual Studio Code, including a Python extension, to benefit from auto-complete, IntelliSense, linting, and debugging for Python development, on any platform.
Source: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/taking-a-closer-look-at-python-support-for-azure-functions/
Hosting of Azure Functions written in Python language can be either through a Consumption Plan or Service App Plan. Tayal explains in the blog post around the Python preview:
Underneath the covers, both hosting plans run your functions in a docker container based on the open source azure-function/python base image. The platform abstracts away the container, so you're only responsible for providing your Python files and don't need to worry about managing the underlying Azure Functions and Python runtime.
Lastly, with the support for Python 3.6, Microsoft is following competitor Amazon’s offering AWS Lambda, which already supports this Python version. By promoting more languages for running code on a Cloud platform, both Microsoft and Amazon aim to reach a wider audience.
