Move beyond a local demo into an operable cloud workload.
The original FastAPI application was progressively hardened with cloud hosting, telemetry, Docker packaging, automated deployment, and secure runtime configuration.
FASTAPI · DOCKER · ACR · CONTAINER APPS · AZURE MONITOR · KEY VAULT
PROJECT / WEATHER TRACKERCLOUD-NATIVE
WEATHER PLATFORM.
A FastAPI weather application engineered into a secure, observable Azure workload with containers, CI/CD, structured telemetry, alerting, and managed-identity-backed secret delivery.
LIVE RUNTIME NOTE
The Container App can scale to zero. After idle time, the first request may take roughly 30–60 seconds while the container starts; subsequent requests return normally.
RUNTIME / CONTAINER APPS IMAGE / ACR SECRET / KEY VAULT
DEPLOYMENT PATH / FINAL ARCHITECTURELIVE ON AZURE
GITHUBDOCKERACRCONTAINER APPSMONITOR
01 / SYSTEM OVERVIEW
FROM LOCAL APP TO AZURE WORKLOAD.
A secure cloud-native deployment path.
Container Apps runs the live workload, ACR stores the image, GitHub Actions handles deployment, Azure Monitor provides operational visibility, and Key Vault delivers the WeatherAPI secret through managed identity.
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02 / BUILD & DEPLOYMENT
CODE → IMAGE → REGISTRY → RUNTIME.
The final delivery path separates application development, container packaging, image storage, validation, and production hosting.
FastAPI Weather App
Python 3.12, Jinja2, SQLite, HTTPX, favourites, search, forecast, and /health.
Docker
Production-style image using Gunicorn and Uvicorn workers on port 8000.
Azure Container Registry
Private image storage used by the Azure container runtimes.
Azure Container Instances
Short-lived validation runtime used before the final Container Apps deployment.
Azure Container Apps
Public HTTPS ingress, scale-to-zero, and the final production-style workload.
03 / SECURITY & OPERATIONS
OBSERVABLE. ALERTED. SECRET-SAFE.
The project deliberately treats telemetry, alerting, and secret management as part of the platform rather than extras around the application.
01
TELEMETRYApplication Insights
Captures requests and application behaviour through Azure Monitor OpenTelemetry.
02
LOGGINGStructured application logs
Weather request start, success, latency, HTTP failures, and context.
03
ALERTINGAzure Monitor
KQL-based scheduled-query alert detects WeatherAPI HTTP errors.
04
NOTIFYAction Group
Email action confirms the alert path reaches the operator.
05
SECRETSKey Vault + Managed Identity
The WeatherAPI key is referenced securely by the Container App.
04 / ENGINEERING EVIDENCE
THE BUILD, PROVEN IN AZURE.
Real screenshots from application hosting, containers, telemetry, monitoring, alerting, troubleshooting, and CI/CD.
05 / END-TO-END VALIDATION
TEN STAGES FROM MVP TO SECURED RUNTIME.
Build local FastAPI MVP
Deploy to Azure App Service
Add Application Insights telemetry
Configure Azure Monitor alerts
Containerize with Docker
Publish image to ACR
Validate image with ACI
Deploy to Azure Container Apps
Automate with GitHub Actions
Move WeatherAPI secret to Key Vault
06 / IMPLEMENTATION STACK
APPLICATION + PLATFORM ENGINEERING.
- Python 3.12
- FastAPI
- Jinja2 templates
- SQLite development storage
- HTTPX
- Gunicorn + Uvicorn workers
- Azure App Service
- Application Insights
- Azure Monitor
- Azure Container Registry
- Azure Container Instances
- Azure Container Apps
- Azure Key Vault + managed identity
- GitHub Actions CI/CD
07 / BUILD LESSONS
WHAT BROKE — AND WHAT THE PLATFORM TAUGHT.
Startup dependencies must match runtime commands.
The App Service deployment failed until Gunicorn was included in the application dependencies.
Telemetry needs real instrumentation.
Application Insights existed before useful request and trace data flowed; Azure Monitor OpenTelemetry fixed the observability gap.
Alert rules are implementation details too.
Scheduled-query alert syntax needed CLI-specific condition/query formatting before deployment succeeded.
Containers expose networking assumptions.
Docker, WSL, local port mapping, ACI, and Container Apps each forced the runtime configuration to be explicit.
Managed identity removes application secret handling.
Key Vault plus Container Apps managed identity replaced plaintext WeatherAPI secret configuration in the final runtime.
LIVE AZURE CONTAINER APPS WORKLOAD
SEE THE APPLICATION RUNNING.
The first request may take 30–60 seconds after scale-to-zero.