Adding a Database or API Call to Your Web App in Azure:

A Beginner’s Guide Hello there, fellow tech enthusiast! Today, we’re going to talk about how to add a database or make an API call in your web app using Azure. Don’t worry if you’re new to this; I’ll explain everything in simple, layman’s terms. So, let’s get started!

What is Azure? Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing service. It provides a variety of services including those for computing, analytics, storage and networking. Users can pick and choose these services to develop and scale new applications, or run existing applications in the public cloud.

Step 1: Create a Web App in Azure First things first, you need to have a web app on Azure. If you don’t have one yet, you can create it easily:

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

2. In the left-hand menu, click on “Create a resource”.

3. In the “New” window that opens, search for “Web App” and select it.

4. Click on the “Create” button and fill in the details like your subscription, resource group, name of the web app, runtime stack (like .NET, Java, Node.js etc.), operating system and region.

5. Click on “Review + Create” and then “Create” again.

Voila! You now have a web app running on Azure.

Step 2: Add a Database Now that we have our web app ready, let’s add a database to it:

1. In your web app page on the Azure portal, go to the “Settings” section and click on “Configuration”.

2. Click on “+ New connection string”. A form will appear.

3. Fill in the details like type (MySQL, SQL Server etc.), name of the connection string, and the connection string itself which includes the server URL, database name, username and password.

4. Click on “OK” and then “Save”.

That’s it! Your web app now has access to a database.

Step 3: Make an API Call Making an API call from your web app involves writing some code. Here’s an example of how you can do it in Node.js:

const express = require('express');
const axios = require('axios');
const app = express();
app.get('/api/data', async (req, res) => {
    try {
        const response = await axios.get('https://api.example.com/data');
        res.send(response.data);
    } catch (error) {
        res.status(500).send(error);
    }
});
app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3000);

In this code snippet, we’re using the axios library to make a GET request to ‘https://api.example.com/data’. The data received from this API is then sent as a response from our ‘/api/data’ endpoint.

And there you have it! You’ve just added a database and made an API call from your web app in Azure. Remember that practice makes perfect so don’t hesitate to experiment and try different things. Happy coding!