Integrating Different Components with Logic Apps

Logic Apps are one main enterprise-level integration services and let us automate processes as workflows across the organization. They allow for the simple connection of different services and applications with multiple connectors. Further, by leveraging a serverless model, they reduce costs and shorten the time needed for developing a working solution.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

• What Azure Logic Apps is and how it works
• Connectors for Logic Apps
• Creating a Logic App and integrating it with other services
• B2B integration and how works

Technical requirements

To perform exercises from this chapter, you will need the following:

• Visual Studio 2017
• Azure SDK 2.9.1 or later
• Azure Logic Apps for Visual Studio: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=VinaySinghMSFT.AzureLogicAppsToolsforVisualStudio-18551#overview

What is Azure Logic Apps?

Sometimes you need to integrate multiple services and automate tasks such as sending an email, creating a file, or generating a report based on some input data (maybe a database table or a social media feed). If you work with a specific cloud vendor (in this particular case, Microsoft Azure), it could be crucial to be able to rapidly develop workflows that can be versioned and are natively integrated with multiple cloud services, using a tool that does not require learning many different concepts to get started. Such a service is Azure Logic Apps, which you will learn about in this chapter.

Azure Logic Apps – how it works

In the previous chapter, you learned about Azure Functions, which required...

Connectors for Logic Apps

The main concept of Azure Logic Apps is connectors. Connectors are both actions and triggers that you can use in your workflows to fetch data, transform it, and extend the current capabilities of your applications. Currently, Azure Logic Apps have 200 different connectors available, which allow you to integrate with multiple Azure services (such as Azure API Management or Azure Functions), other systems (OneDrive and Salesforce), and even on-premises systems.

Connector types

In Azure Logic Apps, connectors are divided into two categories:

• Built-in connectors: These are designed to work with Azure services and create workflows and are organized around handling application logic and working with data...

Creating Logic Apps and integrating services

As Azure Logic Apps is also targeted at non-developers, the process of creating instances and working with them is quite straightforward. In this section of this chapter, you will learn how to work with them in Azure Portal and Visual Studio and how to integrate multiple services and use actions to control a workflow.

Creating Logic Apps in Azure Portal

To create an instance of a Logic App, follow these steps:

1. Click on + Create a resource and search for Logic App. When you click on the Create button, you will see a simple form that allows you to create a new instance of a Logic App:

2. In fact, the only extra thing you are able to configure here is enabling Azure Log Analytics...

B2B integration

To a slight extent, we have already covered B2B integration of Azure Logic Apps in this chapter, but I wanted to give you some more information regarding this topic, as this service is not always recognized as an enterprise integration tool. Surprisingly, Azure Logic Apps has many interesting features to offer when it comes to exchanging messages and data between partners and you'll find the relevant details in this section.

Starting B2B integration in Azure Logic Apps

To get started with B2B integration, you will need an Integration Account—this is a special container for integration artifacts you will work with. In general, it allows you to store a variety of different items (certificates, schemas...

Summary

In this chapter, you have learned about Azure Logic Apps, a simple yet useful service whose use isn't restricted to Azure ninjas. You read about different connectors and multiple ways of working with your Logic Apps—using both Azure Portal (with designed and code editor) and Visual Studio. Additionally, you should know something about B2B integration in that service and how to start it.

In Chapter 9, Swiss Army Knife - Azure Cosmos DB, we cover Azure CosmosDB—a serverless database that enables the user to use different DB models in the same service.

Questions

1. What is the pricing model for Azure Logic Apps?
2. Can we use a loop in a Logic App workflow?
3. What is needed to open a Logic App in Visual Studio?
4. How can we debug a particular Logic App execution?
5. Can a Logic App push a message directly to a queue such as Azure Service Bus or Azure Storage Queue?
6. How can we version multiple Logic Apps?

Further reading

For more information you can refer to the following links:

• Azure Logic Apps overview: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-overview
• Exchanging AS2 messages: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-enterprise-integration-as2
• Integrating Azure Logic Apps with enterprise solutions: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-enterprise-integration-overview
• Azure Logic Apps connectors: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/