Azure Logic Apps Standard: Single Tenant & VS Code

Azure Logic Apps has traditionally been a Consumption-based, shared-tenant service. While cheap and scalable, it suffered from “Noisy Neighbor” latency issues and lacked VNET integration without an expensive ISE (Integration Service Environment). Detailed here is the new Logic Apps Standard, running on the Azure Functions runtime.

Architectural Shift: Single Tenant

Logic Apps Standard runs on your own App Service Plan. This means:

• Predictable Performance: You reserve the CPU/RAM.
• VNET Integration: It can talk to your on-prem SQL Server via VPN/ExpressRoute without an On-Premises Data Gateway.
• Local Development: This is the game changer. You can now run workflows locally in VS Code!

Local Development Experience

Previously, you had to edit JSON in the Azure Portal. Now, you install the extension, and it creates a project structure:

MyWorkflowApp
|-- host.json
|-- Workflow1
|   |-- workflow.json
|-- Workflow2
    |-- workflow.json

This `workflow.json` is stateless definition. The runtime interprets it locally using the Azure Storage Emulator (Azurite). This finally enables a true Git-based workflow for Logic Apps.

Stateless vs Stateful Workflows

Standard introduces a new mode: Stateless.

• Stateful (Default): Checkpoints every action to Storage. High reliability, slower. Good for “Order Processing” (days).
• Stateless: Runs in memory. If the server crashes, the run is lost. Ultra-low latency (ms). Good for “Request/Response APIs”.

// workflow.json
{
  "kind": "Stateless",
  "definition": { ... }
}

Switching a high-volume HTTP webhook to Stateless reduced our P95 latency from 800ms to 45ms.