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Microsoft details preview of Azure functions on .NET 6

Developers can now experience serverless IT projects with Azure Functions on the latest preview of the next release of .NET 6 Milestone.

The Azure Functions development team provided .NET 5 support earlier this year by creating a new .NET isolated process model, required due to the tight coupling between host process and functions, an in-process model. Since the Azure Functions host runtime typically runs on .NET Core 3.1, the isolated process was required to decouple this integration and make it work on .NET 5.

This model works well on .NET 5 with the latest version of Visual Studio 2019 v16.10 that shipped last month, providing full support for building, local debugging, and deploying Azure Functions to process applications. isolated .NET 5.0.

Now, with the groundbreaking and unifying version of .NET 6 LTS coming in November, the team is previewing Azure Function support with both the isolated process and running programming models.

Here are some differences between the two models:

This preview – no official support – works with .NET 6 Preview 4 and requires Azure Functions V4 preview. That’s a lot of preview bits, and the developers remember:

• At this time, you can only deploy .NET 6.0 function apps to Azure Functions V4 preview on Windows hosting plans.
• Currently, no optimization is enabled for .NET 6.0 applications in Azure. You may notice an increase in cold start times.
• Although other language workers are included in the current preview of Core Tools V4, they are not supported at this time. Continue to use Azure Functions V3 and Core Tools V3 for other languages ​​and production workloads.

“The isolated process model for .NET is new and there are a few differences compared to the current model, ”Microsoft said in a June 9 blog post. Publish. “Many will be addressed as the programming model continues to evolve. If you need access to features that are currently lacking, such as durable features, use the current template. ”

The diagram below shows which process models work with which versions of .NET:

To help developers experience all of the new preview features, Microsoft has released Quickstarts: Preview of Azure Functions V4 (.NET 6.0) on GitHub.

The team earlier this year also posted a roadmap indicating what is coming for Azure Functions, parts of which are read (verbatim):

• .NET 6 LTS: .NET 6 functions will support both in-process and isolated process options. The in-process option will support the full set of features available in .NET Core 3.1 features today, including durable features and rich binding types. The isolated process option will provide an upgrade path for applications using this option for .NET 5 and will initially have the same feature set and limitations.
• .NET 7 and beyond: In the long term, our vision is to have full feature parity out of process, bringing many features currently exclusive to the in-process model to the isolated model. We plan to start making improvements to the isolated model after the general release of .NET 6.

  .NET 7 is scheduled for the second half of 2022, and we plan to support .NET 7 on day 1 exclusively in the isolated model. We expect you to be able to migrate and run almost any .NET serverless workload in the lone worker, including durable functions and other targeted improvements to the lone model.

• .NET Framework: Currently, the .NET Framework is supported in Azure Functions V1 host. As the isolated model for .NET continues to evolve, we will investigate the feasibility of running the .NET Isolated Worker SDK in .NET Framework applications. This could allow users to develop applications targeting the .NET Framework on newer versions of the function runtime.

The development team has promised more in the coming months: “We are bringing support for .NET 6.0 Azure Functions to tools such as Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code and all hosting plans in Azure. Expect a public preview of Azure Functions V4 in Q3. of this year and general availability in November. Follow our twitter account for the latest updates: @AzureFunctions. ”