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Tutorial: Deploy a Dapr application to Azure Container Apps with an Azure Resource Manager or Bicep template

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Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime) is a runtime that helps you build resilient stateless and stateful microservices. In this tutorial, a sample Dapr solution is deployed to Azure Container Apps via an Azure Resource Manager (ARM) or Bicep template.

You learn how to:

  • Create an Azure Blob Storage for use as a Dapr state store
  • Deploy a Container Apps environment to host container apps
  • Deploy two dapr-enabled container apps: one that produces orders and one that consumes orders and stores them
  • Assign a user-assigned identity to a container app and supply it with the appropiate role assignment to authenticate to the Dapr state store
  • Verify the interaction between the two microservices.

With Azure Container Apps, you get a fully managed version of the Dapr APIs when building microservices. When you use Dapr in Azure Container Apps, you can enable sidecars to run next to your microservices that provide a rich set of capabilities.

In this tutorial, you deploy the solution from the Dapr Hello World quickstart.

The application consists of:

  • A client (Python) container app to generate messages.
  • A service (Node) container app to consume and persist those messages in a state store

The following architecture diagram illustrates the components that make up this tutorial:

Architecture diagram for Dapr Hello World microservices on Azure Container Apps

Prerequisites

  • An Azure account with an active subscription is required. If you don't already have one, you can create an account for free.
  • A GitHub Account. If you don't already have one, sign up for free.

Setup

To sign in to Azure from the CLI, run the following command and follow the prompts to complete the authentication process.

az login

To ensure you're running the latest version of the CLI, run the upgrade command.

az upgrade

Next, install or update the Azure Container Apps extension for the CLI.

az extension add --name containerapp --upgrade

Now that the current extension or module is installed, register the Microsoft.App and Microsoft.OperationalInsights namespaces.

Note

Azure Container Apps resources have migrated from the Microsoft.Web namespace to the Microsoft.App namespace. Refer to Namespace migration from Microsoft.Web to Microsoft.App in March 2022 for more details.

az provider register --namespace Microsoft.App

az provider register --namespace Microsoft.OperationalInsights

Set environment variables

Set the following environment variables. Replace <PLACEHOLDERS> with your values:

RESOURCE_GROUP="<RESOURCE_GROUP>"
LOCATION="<LOCATION>"
CONTAINERAPPS_ENVIRONMENT="<CONTAINERAPPS_ENVIRONMENT>"

Create an Azure resource group

Create a resource group to organize the services related to your container app deployment.

az group create \
  --name $RESOURCE_GROUP \
  --location "$LOCATION"

Prepare the GitHub repository

Go to the repository holding the ARM and Bicep templates that's used to deploy the solution.

Select the Fork button at the top of the repository to fork the repo to your account.

Now you can clone your fork to work with it locally.

Use the following git command to clone your forked repo into the acadapr-templates directory.

git clone https://github.com/$GITHUB_USERNAME/Tutorial-Deploy-Dapr-Microservices-ACA.git acadapr-templates

Deploy

The template deploys:

  • a Container Apps environment
  • a Log Analytics workspace associated with the Container Apps environment
  • an Application Insights resource for distributed tracing
  • a blob storage account and a default storage container
  • a Dapr component for the blob storage account
  • the node, Dapr-enabled container app with a user-assigned managed identity: hello-k8s-node
  • the python, Dapr-enabled container app: hello-k8s-python
  • an Active Directory role assignment for the node app used by the Dapr component to establish a connection to blob storage

Navigate to the acadapr-templates directory and run the following command:

az deployment group create \
  --resource-group "$RESOURCE_GROUP" \
  --template-file ./azuredeploy.json \
  --parameters environment_name="$CONTAINERAPPS_ENVIRONMENT"

A warning (BCP081) might be displayed. This warning has no effect on the successful deployment of the application.

az deployment group create \
  --resource-group "$RESOURCE_GROUP" \
  --template-file ./azuredeploy.bicep \
  --parameters environment_name="$CONTAINERAPPS_ENVIRONMENT"

This command deploys:

  • the Container Apps environment and associated Log Analytics workspace for hosting the hello world Dapr solution
  • an Application Insights instance for Dapr distributed tracing
  • the nodeapp app server running on targetPort: 3000 with Dapr enabled and configured using: "appId": "nodeapp" and "appPort": 3000, and a user-assigned identity with access to the Azure Blob storage via a Storage Data Contributor role assignment
  • A Dapr component of "type": "state.azure.blobstorage" scoped for use by the nodeapp for storing state
  • the Dapr-enabled, headless pythonapp that invokes the nodeapp service using Dapr service invocation

Verify the result

Confirm successful state persistence

You can confirm that the services are working correctly by viewing data in your Azure Storage account.

  1. Open the Azure portal in your browser.

  2. Go to the newly created storage account in your resource group.

  3. Select Containers from the menu on the left side.

  4. Select the created container.

  5. Verify that you can see the file named order in the container.

  6. Select the file.

  7. Select the Edit tab.

  8. Select the Refresh button to observe updates.

View Logs

Data logged via a container app are stored in the ContainerAppConsoleLogs_CL custom table in the Log Analytics workspace. You can view logs through the Azure portal or from the command line. Wait a few minutes for the analytics to arrive for the first time before you query the logged data.

Use the following command to view logs in bash or PowerShell.

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 == 'nodeapp' and (Log_s contains 'persisted' or Log_s contains 'order') | project ContainerAppName_s, Log_s, TimeGenerated | take 5" \
  --out table

The following output demonstrates the type of response to expect from the command.

ContainerAppName_s    Log_s                            TableName      TimeGenerated
--------------------  -------------------------------  -------------  ------------------------
nodeapp               Got a new order! Order ID: 61    PrimaryResult  2021-10-22T21:31:46.184Z
nodeapp               Successfully persisted state.    PrimaryResult  2021-10-22T21:31:46.184Z
nodeapp               Got a new order! Order ID: 62    PrimaryResult  2021-10-22T22:01:57.174Z
nodeapp               Successfully persisted state.    PrimaryResult  2021-10-22T22:01:57.174Z
nodeapp               Got a new order! Order ID: 63    PrimaryResult  2021-10-22T22:45:44.618Z

Clean up resources

Once you're done, run the following command to delete your resource group along with all the resources you created in this tutorial.

az group delete \
  --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP

Note

Since pythonapp continuously makes calls to nodeapp with messages that get persisted into your configured state store, it is important to complete these cleanup steps to avoid ongoing billable operations.

Tip

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

Next steps

Application lifecycle management