What Are Azure Logic Apps?
Azure Logic Apps is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering by Azure, where users connect to their organization’s applications and services, develop and run automated workflows in the cloud and automate existing workflows that integrate services, data, apps, and systems. They have a simple user interface that does not require a single line of code; the only prerequisite is an Azure subscription. With this service, you will develop highly scalable integration solutions for your enterprise and business-to-business (B2B) scenarios.
With Azure Services, users need not worry about scaling, monitoring, hosting, or managing their solutions. Instead, they can connect to the cloud and on-premises items for integration and report development.
Use Cases
- Sending email alerts to users on updates of data.
- Social media connectivity using built-in connectors.
- Routing based on content.
- Transfer files from SFTP or FTP server to Azure Storage.
- Build alerts or task items that need review.
Structure of Azure Logic Apps
Every workflow in a logic app starts with a trigger. It is fired as soon as a condition is met. Triggers can have a pull or push pattern. Pull triggers are fired when a new update is performed on the source data since its last pull. Push triggers are fired when a new data set is generated in the source.
Workflow
A workflow covers a series of steps defining the key of a task or process. Every workflow starts with a trigger, after which you can add one or more actions.
Action
Inside a workflow: After the trigger, an action is found in each step, which can be defined as performing a specific task.
Trigger
A trigger is usually the first step in any workflow and specifies the condition for running the workflow.
Connectors
Connectors are the most powerful aspect of a Logic App. They are blocks of pre-built operations that communicate with 3rd-party services. They can be nested within each other to provide complex solutions. Azure contains hundreds of built-in connectors; users can leverage these connectors to accomplish tasks without coding experience. Users can also build custom connectors to fulfill their business requirements.
Roles
To create connectors, users must have a role defined.
- Logic App Contributors can manage apps but cannot modify them
- Logic App Operators can read and enable/disable apps and cannot edit them
- Contributors have full access to manage all resources and cannot assign roles
Connector Types
Built-in Connectors
These are connectors shared by different systems for common usage. They are not designed for a specific system. Ex: Schedule, Request, HTTP, and Batch.
They are another category of built-in connectors that connect to multiple sources such as SQL Server and Azure App Services.
They can also run code with the Azure Functions connector (C#, Node.js) or the Inline Code connector (JavaScript). Users can type their code directly into those interfaces; these connectors run the code and return the results.
Another set of built-in connectors would control the structure of the workflow based on a specific condition and perform actions when that condition is met. Users need to specify the actions when the condition is true or false.
- For Each repeats the action for each item in the array that can run in parallel.
- Users can define an Until condition that stops the loop at a specific point.
- Name connector groups actions into scopes that run based on whether an action occurred and assigns the corresponding status (Succeed, Fail, or Cancel) to the scope.
- Switch runs actions based on the object’s value.
- Terminate halts the workflow based on the condition specified.
A specific set of built-in connectors are available to provide functionality for handling common data operations (Compose, Create CSV or HTML Table, Filter Array, Join, or Select), date time requests, and variables.
Finally, they are connectors for which users would be billed based on consumption. There are multi-tenant Azure plans which users may choose. This connector offers powerful capabilities, such as encoding, decoding, and converting Liquid and XML formats (JSON, TEXT, and XML) using templates.
Managed Connectors
Managed Connectors connect to external systems via the cloud or on-premises systems. Microsoft authenticates the users’ identities and manages these external connections. It provides several standard connectors that connect to popular external services, such as SQL Server, Azure Blob, and Office 365.
On-Premises Connectors
On-Premises Connectors connect to popular sources, such as Oracle DB, PostgreSQL, and SharePoint. Users need to configure a data gateway before using these connectors.
Integration Account Connectors
Integration Account Connectors are designed for business-to-business (B2B) scenarios such as schemas, maps, or agreements. Enterprise Connectors, such as IBM and SAP, are also available that connect to these enterprise systems at an additional cost.
Conclusion
Azure Logic Apps provides numerous ways to create different workflows that simplify business requirements. Its simple interface helps users with any level of coding experience to build workflows easily. It would help to automate the organization’s time-consuming and repetitive processes that safeguard the possibility of human errors.
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This post was originally published here.