Running Python Scripts in Azure

Question

I have a GitHub repository with some .py scripts. What would be the steps to follow to get them running in Azure through a cron scheduler?

Answer 1

My recommendation would be to use Azure Python Functions with a time trigger binding and call your Python modules from there.

A simplistic sample project structure could look like this

├── function-app/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── function.json
└── shared/
    └── your_module.py

where __init__.py contains the Azure Function wrapper code that gets executed according to the cron schedule

from __app__.shared.your_module import your_function

def main(mytimer: func.TimerRequest) -> None:
    utc_timestamp = datetime.datetime.utcnow().replace(tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc).isoformat()

    logging.info('Python timer trigger function ran at %s', utc_timestamp)

    # call your_function() here

and function.json contains among others the cron schedule expression, in this example running every 6 hours.

{
  "scriptFile": "__init__.py",
  "bindings": [
    {
      "name": "mytimer",
      "type": "timerTrigger",
      "direction": "in",
      "schedule": "0 0 */6 * * *"
    }
  ]
}