Skip to content

Files

Latest commit

alexbuckgitalexbuckgit
[BULK UPDATE] DocuTune - Apply event-tier1-build-2022 ms.custom tag t…
May 23, 2022
55762f7 · May 23, 2022

History

History
320 lines (244 loc) · 9.46 KB

background-processing.md

File metadata and controls

320 lines (244 loc) · 9.46 KB
title description services author ms.service ms.topic ms.date ms.author ms.custom
Tutorial: Deploy a background processing application with Azure Container Apps
Learn to create an application that continuously runs in the background with Azure Container Apps
container-apps
jorgearteiro
container-apps
conceptual
11/02/2021
joarteir
ignite-fall-2021, devx-track-azurecli, event-tier1-build-2022

Tutorial: Deploy a background processing application with Azure Container Apps

Using Azure Container Apps allows you to deploy applications without requiring the exposure of public endpoints. By using Container Apps scale rules, the application can scale up and down based on the Azure Storage queue length. When there are no messages on the queue, the container app scales down to zero.

You learn how to:

[!div class="checklist"]

  • Create a Container Apps environment to deploy your container apps
  • Create an Azure Storage Queue to send messages to the container app
  • Deploy your background processing application as a container app
  • Verify that the queue messages are processed by the container app

[!INCLUDE container-apps-create-cli-steps.md]

Individual container apps are deployed to an Azure Container Apps environment. To create the environment, run the following command:

Bash

az containerapp env create \
  --name $CONTAINERAPPS_ENVIRONMENT \
  --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP \
  --location "$LOCATION"

PowerShell

az containerapp env create `
  --name $CONTAINERAPPS_ENVIRONMENT `
  --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP `
  --location $LOCATION

Set up a storage queue

Choose a name for STORAGE_ACCOUNT. Storage account names must be unique within Azure and be from 3 to 24 characters in length containing numbers and lowercase letters only.

Bash

STORAGE_ACCOUNT="<storage account name>"

PowerShell

$STORAGE_ACCOUNT="<storage account name>"

Create an Azure Storage account.

Bash

az storage account create \
  --name $STORAGE_ACCOUNT \
  --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP \
  --location "$LOCATION" \
  --sku Standard_RAGRS \
  --kind StorageV2

PowerShell

$STORAGE_ACCOUNT = New-AzStorageAccount `
  -Name $STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME `
  -ResourceGroupName $RESOURCE_GROUP `
  -Location $LOCATION `
  -SkuName Standard_RAGRS `
  -Kind StorageV2

Next, get the connection string for the queue.

Bash

QUEUE_CONNECTION_STRING=`az storage account show-connection-string -g $RESOURCE_GROUP --name $STORAGE_ACCOUNT --query connectionString --out json | tr -d '"'`

PowerShell

 $QUEUE_CONNECTION_STRING=(az storage account show-connection-string -g $RESOURCE_GROUP --name $STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME --query connectionString --out json)  -replace '"',''

Now you can create the message queue.

Bash

az storage queue create \
  --name "myqueue" \
  --account-name $STORAGE_ACCOUNT \
  --connection-string $QUEUE_CONNECTION_STRING

PowerShell

$queue = New-AzStorageQueue –Name "myqueue" `
  -Context $STORAGE_ACCOUNT.Context

Finally, you can send a message to the queue.

Bash

az storage message put \
  --content "Hello Queue Reader App" \
  --queue-name "myqueue" \
  --connection-string $QUEUE_CONNECTION_STRING

PowerShell

$queueMessage = [Microsoft.Azure.Storage.Queue.CloudQueueMessage]::new("Hello Queue Reader App")
$queue.CloudQueue.AddMessageAsync($QueueMessage)

Deploy the background application

Create a file named queue.json and paste the following configuration code into the file.

{
    "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-08-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
    "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
    "parameters": {
        "location": {
            "defaultValue": "canadacentral",
            "type": "String"
        },
        "environment_name": {
            "defaultValue": "",
            "type": "String"
        },
        "queueconnection": {
            "defaultValue": "",
            "type": "String"
        }
    },
    "variables": {},
    "resources": [
    {
        "name": "queuereader",
        "type": "Microsoft.App/containerApps",
        "apiVersion": "2022-03-01",
        "kind": "containerapp",
        "location": "[parameters('location')]",
        "properties": {
            "managedEnvironmentId": "[resourceId('Microsoft.App/managedEnvironments', parameters('environment_name'))]",
            "configuration": {
                "activeRevisionsMode": "single",
                "secrets": [
                {
                    "name": "queueconnection",
                    "value": "[parameters('queueconnection')]"
                }]
            },
            "template": {
                "containers": [
                    {
                        "image": "mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/containerapps-queuereader",
                        "name": "queuereader",
                        "env": [
                            {
                                "name": "QueueName",
                                "value": "myqueue"
                            },
                            {
                                "name": "QueueConnectionString",
                                "secretref": "queueconnection"
                            }
                        ]
                    }
                ],
                "scale": {
                    "minReplicas": 1,
                    "maxReplicas": 10,
                    "rules": [
                        {
                            "name": "myqueuerule",
                            "azureQueue": {
                                "queueName": "myqueue",
                                "queueLength": 100,
                                "auth": [
                                    {
                                        "secretRef": "queueconnection",
                                        "triggerParameter": "connection"
                                    }
                                ]
                            }
                        }
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    }]
}

Now you can create and deploy your container app.

Bash

az deployment group create --resource-group "$RESOURCE_GROUP" \
  --template-file ./queue.json \
  --parameters \
    environment_name="$CONTAINERAPPS_ENVIRONMENT" \
    queueconnection="$QUEUE_CONNECTION_STRING" \
    location="$LOCATION"

PowerShell

$params = @{
  environment_name = $CONTAINERAPPS_ENVIRONMENT
  location = $LOCATION
  queueconnection=$QUEUE_CONNECTION_STRING 
}

New-AzResourceGroupDeployment `
  -ResourceGroupName $RESOURCE_GROUP `
  -TemplateParameterObject $params `
  -TemplateFile ./queue.json `
  -SkipTemplateParameterPrompt

This command deploys the demo application from the public container image called mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/containerapps-queuereader and sets secrets and environments variables used by the application.

The application scales up to 10 replicas based on the queue length as defined in the scale section of the ARM template.

Verify the result

The container app runs as a background process. As messages arrive from the Azure Storage Queue, the application creates log entries in Log analytics. You must wait a few minutes for the analytics to arrive for the first time before you are able to query the logged data.

Run the following command to see logged messages. This command requires the Log analytics extension, so accept the prompt to install extension when requested.

Bash

LOG_ANALYTICS_WORKSPACE_CLIENT_ID=`az containerapp env show --name $CONTAINERAPPS_ENVIRONMENT --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP --query properties.appLogsConfiguration.logAnalyticsConfiguration.customerId --out tsv`

az monitor log-analytics query \
  --workspace $LOG_ANALYTICS_WORKSPACE_CLIENT_ID \
  --analytics-query "ContainerAppConsoleLogs_CL | where ContainerAppName_s == 'queuereader' and Log_s contains 'Message ID'" \
  --out table

PowerShell

$LOG_ANALYTICS_WORKSPACE_CLIENT_ID=(az containerapp env show --name $CONTAINERAPPS_ENVIRONMENT --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP --query properties.appLogsConfiguration.logAnalyticsConfiguration.customerId --out tsv)

$queryResults = Invoke-AzOperationalInsightsQuery -WorkspaceId $LOG_ANALYTICS_WORKSPACE_CLIENT_ID -Query "ContainerAppConsoleLogs_CL | where ContainerAppName_s == 'queuereader' and Log_s contains 'Message ID'"
$queryResults.Results

Tip

Having issues? Let us know on GitHub by opening an issue in the Azure Container Apps repo.

Clean up resources

Once you are done, run the following command to delete the resource group that contains your Container Apps resources.

Bash

az group delete \
  --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP

PowerShell

Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name $RESOURCE_GROUP -Force

This command deletes the entire resource group including the Container Apps instance, storage account, Log Analytics workspace, and any other resources in the resource group.