{"id":3923,"date":"2017-08-09T01:00:47","date_gmt":"2017-08-09T08:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/?p=3923"},"modified":"2025-06-13T20:57:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T03:57:02","slug":"azure-functions-couchbase-server","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/azure-functions-couchbase-server\/","title":{"rendered":"Azure Functions with Couchbase Server"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Azure Functions are Microsoft\u2019s answer to Amazon\u2019s Lambdas or Google\u2019s Cloud Functions (aka “serverless” architecture). They give you a way to deploy small pieces of code, and let Azure handle the underlying server. I\u2019ve never used them before, so I thought I would give them a try beyond “Hello, World”, by getting them to work with Couchbase Server.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There are more options<\/a> in Azure Functions beyond simple HTTP events (e.g. Blob triggers, GitHub webhooks, Azure Storage queue triggers, etc). But, for this blog post, I\u2019m going to focus on just HTTP events. I\u2019ll create simple “Get” and “Set” endpoints that interact with Couchbase Server.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Before beginning, you can follow along by getting the source code for this blog post<\/a> on GitHub.<\/p>\n

Also, please read the Azure Functions and Lazy Initialization with Couchbase Server post<\/a>. It contains an important update about using Couchbase Server and Azure Functions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Getting setup to develop Azure Functions<\/h2>\n
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For this blog post, I decided to try Visual Studio Preview<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Visual<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I did this because there is a handy tool for creating<\/a> Azure Function projects in Visual Studio.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Azure<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But it only works for the preview version at this time. You don\u2019t have to use these tools to develop Azure Functions, but it made the process simpler for me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Once I had this tooling in place, all I had to was to File\u2192New\u2192Project. Then under “Cloud”, select “Azure Functions”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"New<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Once you do this, you\u2019ll have an empty looking project with a couple of JSON files. Right click on the project, add item, and select “Azure Function”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Add<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Next, you\u2019ll need to select what kind of Azure Function you want to create. I chose “HttpTrigger”. I also chose “Anonymous” to keep this post simple, but depending on your use case, you may want to require an authentication token. After you do this, a very simple shell of a function will be generated (as a C# class). You can execute this function locally (indeed, that is what the local.settings.json file is for) so you can test it out without deploying to Azure yet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Writing a “Get” function<\/h2>\n
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First, I decided that I wanted two Azure Functions: one to “get” a piece of data by ID, and one to “set” a new piece of given data. I started by defining the shape of my data with a simple C# POCO:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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public class MyDocument\r\n{\r\n    public string Name { get; set; }\r\n    public int ShoeSize { get; set; }\r\n    public decimal Balance { get; set; }\r\n}<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Here is the Azure function that I wrote to “get” that document from Couchbase Server:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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public static async Task<HttpResponseMessage> Get([HttpTrigger(AuthorizationLevel.Anonymous, \"get\", Route = null)]HttpRequestMessage req, TraceWriter log)\r\n{\r\n    \/\/ parse query parameter\r\n    var id = req.GetQueryNameValuePairs()\r\n        .FirstOrDefault(q => string.Compare(q.Key, \"id\", true) == 0)\r\n        .Value;\r\n\r\n    using (var cluster = GetCluster())\r\n    {\r\n        using (var bucket = GetBucket(cluster))\r\n        {\r\n            var doc = await bucket.GetAsync<MyDocument>(id);\r\n            return req.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, doc.Value, new JsonMediaTypeFormatter());\r\n        }\r\n    }\r\n}<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Some things to note:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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