Create a Scheduled Azure WebJob with PowerShell

Question

I am trying to create an Azure WebJob to send a BrokeredMessage to an Azure ServiceBus Topic, the actual act of creating and sending the message is trivial however I have been unable to find a way to automate the creation of the Scheduled WebJob.

The automated workflow should work as follows:

1. Create a new Azure Website [Done]
2. Create a new triggered Azure WebJob uploading a PS1 file [Done]
3. Create a new Azure Scheduler Job Collection [Proven Concept]
4. Create a new Azure Scheduler Job that triggers the WebJob

The Azure Management Portal provides a nice UI for this functionality, which under the covers creates an Azure WebJob in the selected WebSite, an Azure Scheduler Job Collection and an Azure Scheduler Job:

There doesn't appear to be an analogous mechanism for creating a scheduled Azure WebJob with the Azure Service Management PowerShell Module. It is certainly possible to create new WebJobs, Azure Scheduler Collections and Jobs - however I have no idea what URL or Storage Queue the Azure Scheduler is posting to to schedule Azure WebJobs.

Solution

There is a close relationship between Azure Scheduler and Azure WebJobs. Specifically Azure WebJobs does not have any internal support for scheduling, WebJobs relies on the Azure Scheduler to call into the *.scm.azurewebsites.net website.

As such it is possible to use PowerShell cmdlets for these services to setup Azure WebJobs to be triggered on schedule using Azure Scheduler.

$location = "North Europe";

$site = New-AzureWebsite -Location $location `
  -Name "amido-test-website";
$job = New-AzureWebsiteJob -Name $site.Name `
  -JobName "amido-test-job" `
  -JobType Triggered `
  -JobFile ~\Desktop\test.zip;
$jobCollection = New-AzureSchedulerJobCollection `
  -Location $location `
  -JobCollectionName "amido-test-job-collection";
$authPair = "$($site.PublishingUsername):$($site.PublishingPassword)";
$pairBytes = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($authPair);
$encodedPair = [System.Convert]::ToBase64String($pairBytes);
New-AzureSchedulerHttpJob `
  -JobCollectionName $jobCollection[0].JobCollectionName `
  -JobName "test" `
  -Method POST `
  -URI "$($job.Url)\run" `
  -Location $location `
  -StartTime "2014-01-01" `
  -Interval 1 `
  -Frequency Minute `
  -EndTime "2015-01-01" `
  -Headers @{ `
    "Content-Type" = "text/plain"; `
    "Authorization" = "Basic $encodedPair"; `
  };

It's a little long winded so in plain english the above script does the following:

1. Creates a new Azure Website.
2. Creates and Uploads a new WebJob.
3. Creates a new Azure Scheduler Job Collection.
4. Generates the HTTP Basic Authentication header value.
5. Creates a new Azure Scheduler HTTP Job that makes an authenticated request to the *.scm.azurewebsites.net API.

Hope this saves a few other developers from scratching their head trying to figure this one out.

Comments

[Schenz]

Ok, I made use of your PowerShell (thank you for the head start), but have a question. I now see a WebJob and Scheduler Job in the Azure Portal, but the WebJob says that it is On-Demand. The Job is running via the Scheduler, but would like for it to be linked like a manually created Job.

[makhdumi]

@Schenz although it's been over a year since your question, I'm adding the answer for others finding this. To make it look linked like a manually created job, name the scheduler "<sitename>-<jobname>". Azure does the linking purely by checking the job name.

[Haymaker87]

Hi @Richard-Slater, I'm trying to replicate what you are doing here. Where do you get your jobfile from? Do you mind sharing with me your process for deploying/generating -JobFile ~\Desktop\test.zip;?