For the server side of XamSnap, we'll use Azure Functions along with Azure Storage Tables to provide backend storage to the application. Azure Functions is a simple solution to accelerate development for server-side applications that can leverage all features of Windows Azure. We will use the standard HttpClient class found in the .NET base class library for interacting with the service from C#.
A few neat features of Azure Functions are as follows:
You can write functions in a variety of programming languages such as JavaScript, C#, Python, and PHP, as well as some scripting languages such as Batch, Bash, and PowerShell
Azure Functions integrates with Visual Studio Team Services, Bitbucket, and GitHub for Continuous Integration (CI) scenarios
You can set up authentication easily with Azure Active Directory, Windows Live ID, Facebook, Google, and Twitter
Functions can be triggered via HTTP, a schedule or timer, Azure Queue, and so on
Azure Functions is truly serverless...
