At Microsoft Ignite 2024, Azure Functions—a cornerstone of serverless computing in the Microsoft ecosystem—got some powerful upgrades aimed at developer productivity, real-time streaming, and modern app modernization.

Among the standout announcements were support for .NET 9 and the preview of a Redis extension—making Azure Functions even more powerful for event-driven workloads.

Let’s explore what these updates mean for you.

🚀 What’s New in Azure Functions (Ignite 2024 Highlights)

1. ✅ .NET 9 Support in Isolated Worker Model

Azure Functions now supports .NET 9 in its isolated worker model, allowing developers to:

• Use C# 13 features and the newest .NET APIs.

• Run functions in an out-of-process model (for better compatibility and decoupling from Azure runtime).

• Benefit from faster startup times, improved diagnostics, and advanced middleware integration.

The isolated model is particularly suited for modern enterprise apps that require dependency injection, custom serialization, and advanced logging—without being tightly bound to Azure runtime assemblies.

With the release of .NET 9 in preview (at Ignite), you can start testing your workloads now and prepare for GA in early 2025.

2. 🧠 Redis Trigger and Binding Extension (Public Preview)

Another exciting addition: Azure Functions now supports Redis as a trigger source and binding, thanks to a new extension announced in public preview.

What this means:

• You can now write serverless functions that respond to Redis Pub/Sub channels or keyspace notifications.

• Redis bindings allow you to store or retrieve data directly from Redis without writing boilerplate connection code.

This is perfect for:

• Real-time data processing (e.g., chat apps, game state changes)

• Caching layer event monitoring

• Decoupling microservices using lightweight Redis messaging

🔄 Example use case: When a new product is added to Redis via a backend system, an Azure Function gets triggered to notify other microservices or send an alert to a dashboard.

3. 🌐 Improvements in Network Integration & Scaling

Azure Functions continues to evolve for enterprise-grade deployments:

• Private Endpoints & VNet Integration enhancements now support zonal redundancy, improving availability.

• Faster scale-out behavior with a new concurrency management engine optimizes cold start scenarios and burst workloads.

• App Service Environment v3 now supports Azure Functions for ultra-secure workloads.

4. 📦 Developer Tooling & GitHub Actions Enhancements

Microsoft also updated tooling:

• Updated Visual Studio 2022 and 2025 previews support .NET 9 Functions scaffolding.

• GitHub Actions templates now support deployment slots, slot-swap, and pre-warming strategies out-of-the-box.

• Azure Developer CLI (azd) supports end-to-end function app scaffolding and provisioning in IaC mode.

🧑‍💻 Why This Matters for Developers

Whether you're building a microservice backend, a machine learning inference API, or a real-time notification engine—Azure Functions now lets you do it faster and smarter.

🔧 How to Get Started

1. Try .NET 9 in preview:

   bash

   func init MyFunctionProj --worker-runtime dotnetIsolated --target-framework net9.0

2. Install Redis extension:

   bash

   func extensions install --package Microsoft.Azure.WebJobs.Extensions.Redis --version 1.0.0-preview

3. Use Visual Studio or GitHub Actions for full CI/CD support.

🏁 Final Thoughts

With .NET 9 and Redis integration, Azure Functions is embracing the future of high-performance serverless. It’s now easier to build real-time, event-driven, and microservice-ready workloads that scale with demand and integrate seamlessly with your cloud-native architecture.

These Ignite 2024 announcements reflect Microsoft’s commitment to developer-first innovation—making Azure Functions not just powerful, but delightful to use.