Managing and using the Azure Scheduler

The Azure Scheduler lets us create scheduled actions against an HTTP or HTTPS endpoint for a storage queue. By implementing complex infrastructures, we often need to schedule some actions with specific recurrence. Also, the Windows Task Scheduler helps us run custom processes in a scheduled fashion. However, having a Task Scheduler that runs on a user-managed VM involves maintenance and skills, although that is not to say that it is not a highly available solution, as the underlying VM represents a single point of failure.

The Azure Scheduler, via the Azure Portal or the Management API, lets us submit jobs of the following two types:

• HTTP endpoint call

• Message in queue

In the former case, we can customize the request by appending custom headers and choosing the appropriate method (GET, POST, and so on). In the latter, we can put a message on a storage queue, supposing there is someone on the other side ready to process it, before or later.

The Azure Scheduler...