QR Code Generator using Azure Functions & Integration with Business Central Cloud Version

Today in this post I will explain how and why you should consider create your own QR Code programmatically internally without the use of public available options.

Quick Response code, is a code that can be easily read by a device having camera attached. QR Codes are commonly used today across various industries.

In todays word hardly you will find any product which don’t have either Barcode or QR Code.

You may find many free QR Code generators available on the internet. It is very convenient to source and quickly generate QR Codes but using their services have areas of risks and concerns for organization to consider.

The potential security risks such as phishing, malware, Malicious website and data tracking few to list.

Solution to this could be organizations should prefer to find an enterprise paid service or to create their own. If any organization decides to build their own QR Code generator, then there are open-source QR Code libraries where they can rely on.

Now to build a full-fledged application will require to consider for all the typical application infrastructure considerations such as networking, security, monitoring, patching and the list keeps growing. There could be many considerations just to provide a simple service and is it worth? Another big fat questions.

Here comes the Azure Functions.

Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service that is used for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications.

It provides

• software as a service (SaaS),
• platform as a service (PaaS), and
• infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

Azure Functions runs on the Microsoft Azure platform and is used to run small pieces of code, or functions, in the cloud.

With Azure Functions, you only need to focus on a specific function without worrying on the whole application or the infrastructure to run it. Additionally, Azure Functions lets you run your code in a serverless environment without creating a virtual machine or publish any web application.

For Azure functions, you can use development language of your choice, such as C#, F#, Node.js, or PHP.

Because Microsoft Azure is a service, no doubt you have to pay for it. Azure Functions has two types of pricing plans:

Consumption plan – Microsoft Azure provides all the necessary computational resources. Therefore, you don’t need to concentrate on resource management, and you only pay for the time that your code runs.

App service plan – With the app service plan, you can run your functions as you do other web and API applications on Azure. If you are already using app services for other applications, you can run Azure Functions on the same plan without additional costs.

Check for latest Plan online on Azure portal as and when you decide to use the service, or to grab a free trial account. You can list free services available to you if you have azure account using this link here.

Azure Functions Pricing you can check here and free grant per month.

Above links and further links from there will provide detailed information on everything you may require to go with Azure Functions.

Enough for introduction, what we are going to Explore in this series:

1. Creating Azure Functions to generate QR Code & Sample Test of Azure Function
2. Integrating Azure Function with Business Central
3. Integrating with Business Central – using Web Service
4. Testing of Extension functionality for QR Code Generation.

Anything else I decide to add more will update this post with links and other topics related to this series.

Make a book mark to this post, I will update the Links in above list as I complete my next post, and add more topics to the list, I further decide to include in this series.

Go through the above links to educate yourself, so that what I explain in upcoming posts, you better co-relate them.

That’s all for this post, but visit again to learn from upcoming posts in this series, will post soon.

See you again in next post, Till then keep exploring, learning and sharing with others.