Triggering batches

We learned about Azure Batch in Chapter 9, Designing and Developing a Batch Processing Solution, in the Introducing Azure Batch section. In this section, we will learn how to trigger those Batch jobs using Azure Functions. Azure Functions is a serverless service provided by Azure that helps build cloud applications with minimal code, without you having to worry about hosting and maintaining the technology that runs the code. Azure takes care of all the hosting complexities such as deployments, upgrades, security patches, scaling, and more. Even though the name says serverless, it has servers running in the background. It just means that you don't have to maintain those servers – Azure does it for you.

For our requirement of triggering a Batch job, we will be using the Trigger functionality of Azure Functions. A Trigger defines when and how to invoke an Azure function. Azure Functions supports a wide variety of triggers, such as timer trigger, HTTP...