Guidance on Azure Functions - PowerShell vs Azure Automation

[johnnliu]

• For documentation issues, please provide exactly what is wrong/missing and why it's important.

I had a chat with @paulbatum about Azure Functions PowerShell vs. Azure Automation (which has PowerShell runbooks) at MSAUIgnite

I made this table of notes after attending some Automation sessions.

(sorry - OneNote pastes table as picture).

Talking to lots of power users and admin users - they are very keen on the differentiation of Azure Functions PowerShell vs Azure Automation.

This is mostly a moving target - but I ultimately see Azure Functions as a 'language neutral' way to write functions. And Azure Automation as specifically for running Admin PowerShell scripts.

I thought I get the ball rolling with this issue.

[lindydonna]

@johnnliu Thanks for the table, this is super-helpful!

[johnnliu]

Just noted some updates on AzureFunction's side:

• Azure Functions can be extended to 10min max now via config. Default to 5min
• Azure Functions can access managed identity and pull credentials out of Azure keyvault that way
• Azure Functions can be 64bit in consumption as well

I haven't been following Azure Automation's side so the left column may be outdated.

[DouglasStuart]

Something to note about Azure Automation is the ability to run against on-prem resources via Hybrid Runbook Workers. Not only does this let you run workflows on-prem, it lets you bypass the 3-hour fair-use run limit for Azure Automation Runbooks.

[manishkp]

Is there a way for an azure function to use a Service Principal (similar to Automation Connections using Get-AutomationConnection) for calling Azure api's from within the function ?

[paulbatum]

Azure Functions supports AAD MSI which can be used to achieve this scenario: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/app-service-managed-service-identity

[cmbtr4u]

Is there a way for an azure function to use a Service Principal (similar to Automation Connections using Get-AutomationConnection) for calling Azure api's from within the function ?

I have similar kind of requirement.

I tried to call Azure APIs using SPNs in Function APP. It failed to execute with authentication failure error.

[weyCC81]

If i would like to run a python script regularly, but need to store some files too. Which one would you use? or is there something else to automate a python script (Jupyter Notebook without GUI)?

• Runbook because of possible memory- or time-limits?
• Is there a Storage limit or Read/Write limits for temporary files?

• Findings for Runbook https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/90427/azure-powershell-runbooks-with-azure-storage.html https://github.com/azureautomation/runbooks/blob/master/Utility/Python/download_storage_container.py https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/127460/access-storage-account-with-automatio-account-runb.html

• Findings for Functions https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/storage-considerations https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-bindings-storage-blob https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-add-output-binding-storage-queue-vs-code?tabs=in-process&pivots=programming-language-python