Azure Functions serverless computing to finally get Java

Microsoft’s Azure Functions serverless computing platform now has beta support for Java programming, a feature developers have demanded since Azure Functions’ 2016 debut.

The beta inclusion of Java joins Azure Functions’ existing support of JavaScript, C#, F#, Python, PHP, Bash, Batch, and PowerShell.

The Java runtime will share features of Azure Functions such as triggering options, data bindings, and a serverless model with autoscaling. The new support for Java is a follow-up to Microsoft’s recently announced capability for running the open source Azure Functions runtime on .Net Core, the company’s cross-platform implementation of its .Net development platform.

With event-driven, serverless computing, compute resources are used only when needed, with developers building their applications to a set of APIs. There is no need to provision and manage servers. Users are billed just for the resources used. Amazon Web Services’ AWS Lambda is perhaps the best-known serverless offering; Oracle jumped into the serverless fray just this week with its Fn project.

Java developers can use their existing tools to develop with Azure Functions, Microsoft said. For example, Microsoft just released a Maven plugin for deploying Azure functions from Maven-enabled projects. Developers can also use IDEs and tools such as Eclipse, Jetbrains IntelliJ, and Microsoft Visual Studio Code to develop and debug Azure Functions locally.

Azure Functions Core Tools, meanwhile, supports running and debugging of Java functions.