What it is
Azure Functions runs your code on events without you managing a server. HTTP calls, queues, timers. You pay for execution. You still own the code, the permissions, and the surprises.
Cold starts, timeouts, and package size show up here too. Premium plans and pre-warmed instances are how you buy predictability.
Lambda is the AWS twin. If you understand one, you understand the meeting questions for the other.
Why it matters in the meeting
Serverless is sold as simplicity. Operations still asks who owns the function, what identity it uses, and why it retries forever on a bad message.
A wrong timeout turns a brief failure into a long bill or a truncated business process. Both are unpopular with JJ and Bart, for different reasons.
Real world
Functions with broad access to storage and Key Vault are keys that wake on a schedule. Managed identities beat secrets in config files.
A timer trigger left from a pilot can run fourteen thousand times and nobody "uses serverless." The metric says otherwise.
Functions are small programs the cloud babysits. Great until permissions, timeouts, or a forgotten timer make them loud. Own them like services, not toys.
What to ask
- Which functions are customer-facing, and what is their cold-start behaviour?
- Do they use managed identities, or secrets in configuration?
- What is the timeout set to, and has anyone tested the failure path?
- Which timer triggers still run with no product owner?
You just knew a little more Jack than you did five minutes ago.
All concepts