V2 Support Roadmap

[biltongza]

With .Net core 2.2 EOL coming in December 2019, and the GA of V3 only coming in Q1 2020 as confirmed in Azure/app-service-announcements#200, what is the plan for support on V2?

[deepbass]

This is becoming a looming problem for us that we only just spotted the other day - will the .NET Core 2.2 apps on v2 runtime get extended support? Given theres nowhere for us to go with v3 on preview then I hope so

[biltongza]

Nearly a month and no official response :(

[optiks]

and the GA of V3 only coming in October 2020

V3 GA is quoted as Q1 2020, not Oct 2020? There’s still likely to be a ~3 month gap, though.

[biltongza]

Thanks, I misread.

[biltongza]

Thinking about it, V3 could have the same problem down the line. .NET core 3 is not an LTS release, 3.1 will be LTS. What's to say that when Core 3 is EOL V3 we won't be stuck with this same ambiguity on support?

[jsheetzati]

Also wondering about this... Are we supposed to run an EOL'ed .NET Core 2.2 function app or a preview version of .NET Core 3 function app? Both seem less than ideal..

[jeffhollan]

Azure Functions customers will continue to have the runtime serviced and patched moving forward as an official supported runtime. Customers can remain with their apps on v2 and know they are secured until we deprecate the runtime. We have not yet announced any plans to deprecate v2, and whenever we do we plan to give at least 1 years notice for users to upgrade their apps.

We do know many users want to remain on the current .NET feature train, and are working hard to get a production version of functions running on .NET Core 3.1 available for users before the end of this calendar year. At that time customers can choose to start running their apps on .NET Core 3.1 as part of Azure Functions v3.

[optiks]

Azure Functions customers will continue to have the runtime serviced and patched moving forward as an official supported runtime

@jeffhollan, I really don't see how Microsoft think it is acceptable to EOL .NET Core 2.2 on December 23, 2019 when there's no supported path to move to Azure Functions 3 before then. Seriously?

[jeffhollan]

We are working with the .NET team directly who is helping facilitate a path for us to run v2 apps on a runtime that is not end of life. And as mentioned, in addition to this extension of support for Azure Functions v2 we plan to have 3.1 GA in advance of Dec 23 as well. So you should have options to either remain on v2 and know you are covered, or move to 3.1 in advance of Dec 23

[optiks]

@jeffhollan Got it, thanks. Apologies, I thought you were referring to the Azure Functions runtime, not the .NET Core runtime.

[jeffhollan]

Ah yes fair clarification and good callout. Yes the underlying .NET Core runtime that v2 is running on will continue to be serviced through the supported lifetime of v2.

[deepbass]

Thanks @jeffhollan ! So to be clear if I have a C# Azure Functions project built with .NET Core 2.2 running on v2 then I can continue running them without worries or any code/proj file changes past 23rd December?

Of course we'll want to move over to 3.1, but christmas change freezes will start to kick in soon (they make me sad, but are a reality) so would rather avoid the scramble and start in the new year.

[danielearwicker]

Is the special continued support for 2.2 a general thing I can rely on in other deployment scenarios (e.g. a container deployed to ACI or AKS, or a plain web app) or is it exclusive to Az Funcs?

Right now It looks like I need to build funcs apps for 2.2, my other deployments for 3.0, and keep shared assemblies on Standard 2.0 (hold off on upgrading to Standard 2.1) so they can be used from both 2.2 and 3.0 runtimes.

[jeffhollan]

@deepbass correct

@danielearwicker as far as I know (and can confirm this next week) we will only be providing this special extended support to functions running in the Azure Functions service. We are making the final improvements to the 3.1 runtime we hope to ship soon (with a near final release on Monday) so hopefully you can start using that as well to unblock)

[pragnagopa]

Please see Azure/app-service-announcements#266 for the latest updates on this issue.