Insights from Azure Logic Apps Product Team
This episode of Azure on Air is an impromptu but highly valuable conversation between community leader Michael Stephenson and Rohitha Hewawasam , a principal software engineering manager from Microsoft ’s Logic Apps team. The discussion offered a rare look at the hidden complexities of running one of Azure’s most widely adopted integration services and where the future of orchestration is headed.
A 16-Year Journey Inside Microsoft
Rohitha has been with Microsoft for over 16 years, tracing his career from graduate programs to the early SharePoint workflow service and eventually to the small group of engineers who launched Logic Apps. Today, he leads engineering for the Logic Apps runtime, the engine that quietly powers billions of workflow executions every month.
Related reading - Azure Logic Apps cost optimization to maximize savings
Billions of Executions, Invisible Complexity
One of the most striking insights shared was the scale of Logic Apps consumption: billions of actions executed monthly across Azure regions. Behind this apparent simplicity lies enormous engineering work:
Despite these challenges, the service continues to roll out bi-weekly feature updates, all without customers noticing the operational heavy lifting behind the curtain.
Why Logic Apps Standard Was Born
The session also explored the evolution from Logic Apps Consumption to Logic Apps Standard. While Consumption provided an elegant serverless experience, enterprise customers increasingly wanted greater control over their environments.
Logic Apps Standard responded with features like:
By building Standard on top of Azure Functions and App Service, Microsoft enabled developers to treat orchestration workflows just like any other app – configurable, scalable, and CI/CD friendly.
As Raha explained,
We transfer some responsibility back to the customer – but that’s exactly what enterprises wanted.
Democratizing Integration – For Developers
Another key theme was the democratization of integration. Often framed as making tools more accessible to non-technical users, Raha emphasized that democratization also means aligning with developers’ existing workflows.
For a developer already comfortable in App Service, VS Code, and CI/CD pipelines, Logic Apps Standard feels like a natural extension rather than a new paradigm. This “meet developers where they are” philosophy has been central to driving adoption across enterprise teams.
The AI Disruption – Orchestration Without Orchestrators
Perhaps the most forward-looking part of the conversation centered on AI and agentic models. Traditionally, Logic Apps orchestration requires developers to explicitly design flows step by step. AI changes this dynamic.
This represents a significant shift – and potential disruption – to Logic Apps’ core value proposition. But as Raha noted, the team sees it as an opportunity to open up dynamic, intelligent orchestration that adapts in real time.
Community Feedback Driving Change
The discussion also highlighted the role of community feedback. For example, earlier INTEGRATE events surfaced strong criticism about poor local development support. That feedback led to today’s mature VS Code tooling for Logic Apps, demonstrating how direct input from the community has shaped the product’s evolution.
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