Understand functions - Azure Tutorial

When you need a solution that's not just light and fast, but also leaner, meaner, and more cost effective, Azure functions can be a great pick. Let's see what makes functions stand apart in comparison to virtual machines and container instances. This is a virtual machine. When you turn on a VM, virtual hardware resources are assigned to it and the processor is ready for computation. In its turned on state, irrespective of if the VM is actually performing a task or is in an idle state, CPU cycles are being consumed and you pay for those CPU cycles, although you are not using them. My point is, if a VM is on, you pay for it even if it isn't performing any computation. The compute cost for the processor becomes zero only when you turn the VM off, which is not very cost efficient. It's like falling asleep in front of the TV when it's on. Nobody's watching it, but it's still on. This is a Container Instance running on the containerization engine on top of the OS and virtual hardware…