Azure Visual Studio: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners

Azure Visual Studio is a powerful tool that's a must-know for developers. It's a free, open-source code editor developed by Microsoft.

Visual Studio offers a wide range of features, including code completion, debugging, and project management. With Azure Visual Studio, you can build, deploy, and manage applications in the cloud.

One of the key benefits of Azure Visual Studio is its seamless integration with Azure services. This means you can easily deploy your applications to the cloud and manage them from within Visual Studio.

Azure Visual Studio provides a comprehensive set of tools for developers, including a code editor, debugger, and project manager.

To set up Azure Visual Studio, you'll need to install Visual Studio 2022, making sure to select the Azure development workload during installation.

You can run Azure Functions locally without an Azure subscription, but it's highly recommended to create a free Azure account if you plan to publish them to Azure.

To get started, select the Azure Function template on the Create a new project page, choosing Azure Functions from the list and clicking Next.

You'll need to meet two main prerequisites: Visual Studio 2022, which should be installed with the Azure development workload, and an Azure subscription, which can be created for free if you don't already have one.

Creating a project in Azure Visual Studio is a straightforward process. You can use the Azure Functions project template to create a C# class library project that can be published to a function app in Azure.

To get started, open Visual Studio and select File > New > Project from the menu. In the Create a new project dialog, enter "functions" in the search box and choose the Azure Functions template. Select Next to proceed to the next step.

You'll need to configure your new project, entering a Project name that is valid as a C# namespace. This means avoiding underscores, hyphens, and any other nonalphanumeric characters.

Here are the Additional information settings you'll need to consider:

To create a project, start by opening Visual Studio and selecting File > New > Project. From the Create a new project window, enter "functions" in the search box and choose the Azure Functions template.

The project name must be valid as a C# namespace, so avoid using underscores, hyphens, or any other nonalphanumeric characters.

Select Next to proceed to the Configure your new project window.

In this window, enter a Project name for your project.

Here are the Additional information settings you'll need to configure:

Make sure you set the Authorization level to Anonymous. If you choose the default level of Function, you're required to present the function key in requests to access your function endpoint in Azure.

Select Create to create the function project and HTTP trigger function.

Now that you've set up your project, it's time to explore more advanced features. To learn more about running C# functions in an isolated worker process, check out the Guide for running C# Azure Functions in an isolated worker process.

You can also explore other supported .NET versions by checking out .NET supported versions.

To integrate Azure Storage into your project, add an Azure Storage queue binding to your function.

Running Azure Functions locally is a great way to develop and test your code without incurring upfront Azure costs. You can run Azure Functions locally in Visual Studio 2022, but first, you need to install Visual Studio 2022, making sure to select the Azure development workload during installation.

To run Azure Functions locally, you'll need to create a new Azure Function project in Visual Studio. On the Create a new project page, select the Azure Function template, and from the list, choose Azure Functions and click Next.

To create the Azure Function project, provide your Azure Function with a name that's intuitive for you and your team. Specify the location for your Azure Function and click Next. On the Additional information panel, configure the necessary fields and click Create.

Here are the benefits of running Azure Functions locally:

To run your function locally, press F5 in Visual Studio and enable a firewall exception if necessary. Copy the URL of your function from the Azure Functions runtime output and paste it into your browser's address bar.

Deploying and Publishing your Azure Function App is a straightforward process. You can create an Azure Function App directly inside Visual Studio and deploy your local code to it, or you can create an Azure Function App and related resources via the Azure Portal.

To deploy your project to Azure, you must have a function app in your Azure subscription. If you don't already have one, Visual Studio publishing creates one for you the first time you publish your project. You can then proceed to deploy the solution using Visual Studio.

Here's a summary of the deployment steps:

After deployment, you can view the root URL of the function app in Azure on the Publish tab. You can also open the new function app Azure resource in the Azure portal.

Deploying your Azure Function is the next step after testing it on your local environment. You can deploy it to Azure by creating an Azure Function App and publishing your local code to it.

There are two options to create everything that is required in Azure: directly inside Visual Studio or via the Azure Portal. I personally prefer the second option, which involves creating an Azure Function App and a Resource group via the Azure Portal.

To create an Azure Function App, you need to:

Visual Studio will package and deploy your function code to Azure.

Before you can publish your project, you must have a function app in your Azure subscription. If you don't already have a function app in Azure, Visual Studio publishing creates one for you the first time you publish your project.

To publish your project, follow these steps:

You can save your development VM as a "base image" for future use or for other team members by capturing it as an image through the UI in the Azure portal.

Capturing the VM as an image involves using the System Preparation tool (Sysprep) and shutting down the running VM.

Azure saves the .vhd file that contains the image in the storage account of your choosing.

The new image then shows up as an Image resource in your subscription’s list of resources.

Don't forget to use Sysprep to prepare the VM, or Azure won't be able to provision a VM from the image.

You'll still incur some cost for storage of the images, but it's usually insignificant compared to rebuilding the VM from scratch for each team member.

For example, it costs a few dollars to create and store a 127-GB image for a month that's reusable by your entire team.

Using Azure DevTest Labs can also help you automate the construction of your "golden image" and manage policies for your team’s running VMs.

Azure DevTest Labs can be a great resource for learning more about how to use it for your development needs.