Grid Slot

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Azure Event Grid is an intelligent event routing service that enables you to react to notifications or events from apps and services. For example, it can trigger an Azure Function to process Event Hubs data that's captured to a Blob storage or Data Lake Storage. This sample shows you how to use Event Grid and Azure Functions to migrate captured Event Hubs data from blob storage to Azure Synapse Analytics, specifically a dedicated SQL pool.

This diagram depicts the workflow of the solution you build in this tutorial:

Data sent to an Azure event hub is captured in an Azure blob storage.
When the data capture is complete, an event is generated and sent to an Azure event grid.
The event grid forwards this event data to an Azure function app.
The function app uses the blob URL in the event data to retrieve the blob from the storage.
The function app migrates the blob data to an Azure Synapse Analytics.

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In this article, you take the following steps:

Deploy the required infrastructure for the tutorial
Publish code to a Functions App
Create an Event Grid subscription
Stream sample data into Event Hubs
Verify captured data in Azure Synapse Analytics

Prerequisites

To complete this tutorial, you must have:

An Azure subscription. If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.
Visual studio 2019 with workloads for: .NET desktop development, Azure development, ASP.NET and web development, Node.js development, and Python development.
Download the EventHubsCaptureEventGridDemo sample project to your computer.
- WindTurbineDataGenerator – A simple publisher that sends sample wind turbine data to a capture-enabled event hub
- FunctionDWDumper – An Azure Function that receives an Event Grid notification when an Avro file is captured to the Azure Storage blob. It receives the blob’s URI path, reads its contents, and pushes this data to Azure Synapse Analytics (dedicated SQL pool).

Deploy the infrastructure

In this step, you deploy the required infrastructure with a Resource Manager template. When you deploy the template, the following resources are created:

Event hub with the Capture feature enabled.
Storage account for the captured files.
App service plan for hosting the function app
Function app for processing the event
SQL Server for hosting the data warehouse
Azure Synapse Analytics (dedicated SQL pool) for storing the migrated data

Use Azure CLI to deploy the infrastructure

Sign in to the Azure portal.
Select Cloud Shell button at the top.
You see the Cloud Shell opened at the bottom of the browser.
In the Cloud Shell, if you see an option to select between Bash and PowerShell, select Bash.
If you are using the Cloud Shell for the first time, create a storage account by selecting Create storage. Azure Cloud Shell requires an Azure storage account to store some files.
Wait until the Cloud Shell is initialized.
Create an Azure resource group by running the following CLI command:
1. Copy and paste the following command into the Cloud Shell window. Change the resource group name and location if you want.
2. Press ENTER.
  Here is an example:
Deploy all the resources mentioned in the previous section (event hub, storage account, functions app, Azure Synapse Analytics) by running the following CLI command:
1. Copy and paste the command into the Cloud Shell window. Alternatively, you may want to copy/paste into an editor of your choice, set values, and then copy the command to the Cloud Shell.
  Important
  Specify values for the following entities before running the command:
  - Name of the resource group you created earlier.
  - Name for the event hub namespace.
  - Name for the event hub. You can leave the value as it is (hubdatamigration).
  - Name for the SQL server.
  - Name of the SQL user and password.
  - Name for the database.
  - Name of the storage account.
  - Name for the function app.
2. Press ENTER in the Cloud Shell window to run the command. This process may take a while since you are creating a bunch of resources. In the result of the command, ensure that there have been no failures.
Close the Cloud Shell by selecting the Cloud Shell button in the portal (or) X button in the top-right corner of the Cloud Shell window.

Verify that the resources are created

In the Azure portal, select Resource groups on the left menu.
Filter the list of resource groups by entering the name of your resource group in the search box.
Select your resource group in the list.
Confirm that you see the following resources in the resource group:

Create a table in Azure Synapse Analytics

Create a table in your data warehouse by running the CreateDataWarehouseTable.sql script. To run the script, you can use Visual Studio or the Query Editor in the portal. The following steps show you how to use the Query Editor:

In the list of resources in the resource group, select your dedicated SQL pool.
On the Dedicated SQL pool page, in the Common Tasks section on the left menu, select Query editor (preview).
Enter the name of user and password for the SQL server, and select OK. If you see a message about allowing your client to access the SQL server, follow these steps:
1. Select the link: Set server firewall.
2. On the Firewall settings page, select Add client IP on the toolbar, and then select Save on the toolbar.
3. Select OK on the success message.
4. Navigate back to the Dedicated SQL pool page, and select Query editor (preview) on the left menu.
5. Enter user and password, and then select OK.
In the query window, copy and run the following SQL script:
Keep this tab or window open so that you can verify that the data is created at the end of the tutorial.

Update the function runtime version

Open another tab in the web browser, and navigate to Azure portal.
In the Azure portal, select Resource groups on the left menu.
Select the resource group in which the function app exists.
Select the function app in the list of resources in the resource group.
Select Configuration under Settings on the left menu.
Switch to the Function runtime settings tab in the right pane.
Update the runtime version to ~3.
Select Save on the toolbar.
On the Save changes confirmation popup, select Continue.

Publish the Azure Functions app

Launch Visual Studio.
Open the EventHubsCaptureEventGridDemo.sln solution that you downloaded from the GitHub as part of the prerequisites. You can find it in the /samples/e2e/EventHubsCaptureEventGridDemo folder.
In Solution Explorer, right-click FunctionEGDWDumper project, and select Publish.
If you see the following screen, select Start.
In the Publish dialog box, select Azure for Target, and select Next.
Select Azure Function App (Windows), and select Next.
On the Functions instance tab, select your Azure subscription, expand the resource group, and select you function app, and then select Finish. You need to sign into your Azure account if you haven't already done so.
On the Publish page, in the Service Dependencies section, select Configure for Storage.
On the Configure dependency page, follow these steps:
1. select the storage account you created earlier, and then select Next.
2. Specify a name for the connection string, and select None for the Save connection string option, and then select Next.
3. Clear the C# code file and Secrets store option, and then select Finish.
When Visual Studio has configured the profile, select Publish.
In the tab that has the Azure Function page open, select Functions on the left menu. Confirm that the EventGridTriggerMigrateData function shows up in the list. If you don't see it, try publishing from Visual Studio again, and then refresh the page in the portal.

After publishing the function, you're ready to subscribe to the event.

Subscribe to the event

In a new tab or new window of a web browser, navigate to the Azure portal.
In the Azure portal, select Resource groups on the left menu.
Filter the list of resource groups by entering the name of your resource group in the search box.
Select your resource group in the list.
Select the Event Hubs namespace from the list of resources.
On the Event Hubs Namespace page, select Events on the left menu, and then select + Event Subscription on the toolbar.
On the Create Event Subscription page, follow these steps:
1. Enter a name for the event subscription.
2. Enter a name for the system topic. A system topic provides an endpoint for the sender to send events. For more information, see System topics
3. For Endpoint Type, select Azure Function.
4. For Endpoint, select the link.
5. On the Select Azure Function page, follow these steps if they aren't automatically filled.
  1. Select the Azure subscription that has the Azure function.
  2. Select the resource group for the function.
  3. Select the function app.
  4. Select the deployment slot.
  5. Select the function EventGridTriggerMigrateData.
6. On the Select Azure Function page, select Confirm Selection.
7. Then, back on the Create Event Subscription page, select Create.
Verify that the event subscription is created. Switch to the Event Subscriptions tab on the Events page for the Event Hubs namespace.
Select the App Service plan (not the App Service) in the list of resources in the resource group.

Run the app to generate data

You've finished setting up your event hub, dedicate SQL pool (formerly SQL Data Warehouse), Azure function app, and event subscription. Before running an application that generates data for event hub, you need to configure a few values.

In the Azure portal, navigate to your resource group as you did earlier.
Select the Event Hubs namespace.
In the Event Hubs Namespace page, select Shared access policies on the left menu.
Select RootManageSharedAccessKey in the list of policies.
Select the copy button next to the Connection string-primary key text box.
Go back to your Visual Studio solution.
Right-click WindTurbineDataGenerator project, and select Set as Startup project.
In the WindTurbineDataGenerator project, open program.cs.
Replace <EVENT HUBS NAMESPACE CONNECTION STRING> with the connection string you copied from the portal.
Replace <EVENT HUB NAME> with the name of the event hub.
Build the solution. Run the WindTurbineGenerator.exe application.
After a couple of minutes, in the other browser tab where you have the query window open, query the table in your data warehouse for the migrated data.

Monitor the solution

This section helps you with monitoring or troubleshooting the solution.

View captured data in the storage account

Navigate to the resource group and select the storage account used for capturing event data.
On the Storage account page, select Storage Explorer (preview) on the left menu.
Expand BLOB CONTAINERS, and select windturbinecapture.
Open the folder named same as your Event Hubs namespace in the right pane.
Open the folder named same as your event hub (hubdatamigration).
Drill through the folders and you see the AVRO files. Here's an example:

Verify that the Event Grid trigger invoked the function

Navigate to the resource group and select the function app.
Select Functions on the left menu.
Select the EventGridTriggerMigrateData function from the list.
On the Function page, select Monitor on the left menu.
Select Configure to configure application insights to capture invocation logs.
Create a new Application Insights resource or use an existing resource.
Navigate back to the Monitor page for the function.
Confirm that the client application (WindTurbineDataGenerator) that's sending the events is still running. If not, run the app.
Wait for a few minutes (5 minutes or more) and select the Refresh button to see function invocations.
Select an invocation to see details.
Event Grid distributes event data to the subscribers. The following example shows event data generated when data streaming through an event hub is captured in a blob. In particular, notice the fileUrl property in the data object points to the blob in the storage. The function app uses this URL to retrieve the blob file with captured data.

Verify that the data is stored in the dedicated SQL pool

In the browser tab where you have the query window open, query the table in your dedicated SQL pool for the migrated data.

Next steps

To learn about differences in the Azure messaging services, see Choose between Azure services that deliver messages.
For an introduction to Event Grid, see About Event Grid.
For an introduction to Event Hubs Capture, see Enable Event Hubs Capture using the Azure portal.
For more information about setting up and running the sample, see Event Hubs Capture and Event Grid sample.

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What is a Grid Slot?

The first thing we need to identify is what a grid slot game is. The concept of grid slots is simple. The game is based around a single grid that’s split up into boxes. These boxes are filled with objects, and you then have to match those objects in a specific order to remove them and earn points.

Some grid slots are a bit more complex. This is the basic concept that they all revolve around. Candy Crush was the first mobile game to get this right. It has hundreds of levels for players to work through and seems to offer a completely free experience. However, players can pay for additional attempts at a level if they don’t want to wait for their attempts to refresh or even skip one.

In real-life grid slots, players must pay for every game. The difference is that in these grid slots, players stand to win money instead of pure progression. That’s why they’ve always been popular.

What Mobile Games did for Grid Slots

With Candy Crush gaining traction, developers started to release more grid slot titles to capitalize on the popularity of the genre. This is how these games revolutionized the industry.

With players willing to pay for nothing more than one more go on their phones, real-world grid slots had to change. Now, these grid slots can be found online. Sure, you might have to buy into them, but then that’s what people are used to doing on their phones now.

Going Beyond Grid Slots

Today, grid slots have changed from their original form into a concept used in all kinds of games. One of the most notable is Genshin Impact.

In Genshin Impact, players can spend an in-game currency called Wishes on the chance to purchase a new character and weapon. Players can earn these in-game, but they’ll have to earn hundreds if they want to collect them all.

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Free-to-play games have popularized this idea, making it a core part of their experience. Whether players are paying for a season pass or a loot box, they’re still a part of the grid slot machine.

Conclusion

Grid slots may have originated as casino games that you couldn’t play outside of Vegas or your local bar. But now they’re at your fingertips. These games are the most popular and most profitable in the mobile gaming market. They also make up a significant portion of the console and PC market. They’re also the easiest online casino games to get into. Requiring no knowledge of card games to have a great time.

Slot Grid Ceiling

Looking back at the first smartphones to hit the market, it’s hard to imagine that something as simple as a matching game like Candy Crush could do so much to change the face of gaming.

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