Containerized Python Web App — Azure

A containerized Flask REST API deployed to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) via Azure Pipelines CI/CD. The application manages "book jobs" and demonstrates a complete cloud-native Python deployment workflow on Azure.

Architecture

Flask App (Python)
    └── Docker Container (python:alpine)
            └── Azure Container Registry (ACR)
                    └── Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
                            └── Kubernetes Service (LoadBalancer)

CI/CD is handled by Azure Pipelines, which builds the Docker image, pushes it to ACR, and deploys it to AKS on every push to main.

Application

Bookjobs API — a simple CRUD REST API built with Flask.

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/bookjobs	List all book jobs
GET	/bookjobs/{id}	Get a specific book job by ID
POST	/bookjobs	Create a new book job
DELETE	/bookjobs/{id}	Delete a book job by ID

Data is persisted to data.json on disk.

Project Structure

.
├── app/
│   ├── app.py              # Flask application
│   ├── Dockerfile          # Container image definition
│   ├── requirements.txt    # Python dependencies (flask)
│   ├── data.json           # Persistent data store
│   └── curl_commands.sh    # CLI test commands
├── manifests/
│   ├── deployment.yml      # Kubernetes Deployment
│   └── service.yml         # Kubernetes Service (LoadBalancer)
├── azure-pipelines.yml     # CI pipeline (test, Python 3.9)
├── azure-pipelines-3.yml   # CD pipeline (build → push ACR → deploy AKS)
├── azure-pipelines-4.yml   # Alternate pipeline configuration
├── azure-pipelines-5.yml   # Alternate pipeline configuration
├── azure-rest/             # Postman collection for API testing
├── INSTRUCTIONS.md         # Setup and usage instructions
└── RELEASE_NOTES.md        # Version history

Prerequisites

• Docker
• Azure CLI
• An Azure subscription with:
  • Azure Container Registry (ACR)
  • Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
  • Azure DevOps project with a service connection to ACR and AKS

Running Locally

cd app
pip install -r requirements.txt
flask --app app run

The API will be available at http://127.0.0.1:5000.

Running with Docker

cd app
docker build -t bookjobs .
docker run -p 80:5000 bookjobs

The API will be available at http://localhost/bookjobs.

CI/CD Pipeline

The main pipeline (azure-pipelines-3.yml) runs on push to main and:

1. Build — builds the Docker image and pushes it to ACR tagged with the build ID
2. Deploy — applies the Kubernetes manifests to AKS and pulls the new image from ACR
3. PR Preview — deploys pull requests to an isolated namespace for review

Testing

Use the included Postman collection (azure-rest/) or the curl_commands.sh script:

cd app
bash curl_commands.sh

See INSTRUCTIONS.md for detailed usage steps.