RodF
How can I keep Azure prices down
Last week we had a new person join our team at work. His name is Jack. I asked Jack what the job market was like. He said it wasn't good. I also asked him what skills he believes are in demand. He said cloud.
So, I've got to get experience at Azure, the cloud I know something about. However, I am not going to get much experience at using Azure, or any cloud for that matter, at work. I have experience at migrating small SQL Server databases to Azure SQL. I've created Resource Groups and have done some basic IAM. And I've created several Azure Key Vaults. But I don't have any experience at things like Azure Functions, Azure Logic Apps, using PaaS in Azure, etc. Things that a developer who works designing and implementing cloud solutions would know and do. I have always shied away from getting a cloud account because of the alarmist stories I've heard of developers signing up for an account with a public cloud provider one month, then the following month getting stuck with a bill that runs into the thousands of dollars. Of course, I could sign up for a simple Azure tutorial. I've done that, more than once, but they tend to be very narrow and once I'm done with the course, that's it as far as using Azure anymore goes. (At least, that's always been my understanding.)
But now, given what Jack said, I think I've got to bite the bullet and get an Azure account. But I've GOT to keep it as cheap as possible. For those of you with experience at using your own Azure account, how do you keep the costs down? What advise can you give me, please?
20 replies
What feature flag platform do you recommend?
Recently I learned of Microsoft's FeatureManagement feature flag platform, which you can find on NuGet. About two months ago I wrote a simple ASP.NET Core app, using FeatureManagement, following the tutorial for it. It was great, demonstrated it well, etc. However, the feature flags are all saved in the appSettings.json file. Not very flexible.
So, I thought I'd do it again, but this time using a database. I searched for some way of using a database, but couldn't find any. I found several examples using Azure App Configuration. I'd love to use Azure App Configuration, but since my employer as equivocated for 4 years as to whether or not we'll ever go to the cloud ("Yeah, maybe. But, I don't know. But maybe. But I don't know....") I'm sure the odds of our ever going to Azure are very slim to never. Therefore, I looked for a way of using FeatureManagement with a database. I even posted an issue about this on the FeatureManagement GitHub repo. But the more I think about this, the less likely I think Microsoft will share the database structure. So, first question, does anyone know what the database structure is to work with FeatureManagement? Second question, what alternative feature flag platforms are there that I can use in C#?
3 replies