TechConf Registration Website

Project Overview

The TechConf website allows attendees to register for an upcoming conference. Administrators can also view the list of attendees and notify all attendees via a personalized email message.

The application is currently working but the following pain points have triggered the need for migration to Azure:

• The web application is not scalable to handle user load at peak
• When the admin sends out notifications, it's currently taking a long time because it's looping through all attendees, resulting in some HTTP timeout exceptions
• The current architecture is not cost-effective

In this project, you are tasked to do the following:

• Migrate and deploy the pre-existing web app to an Azure App Service
• Migrate a PostgreSQL database backup to an Azure Postgres database instance
• Refactor the notification logic to an Azure Function via a service bus queue message

Dependencies

You will need to install the following locally:

• Postgres
• Visual Studio Code
• Azure Function tools V3
• Azure CLI
• Azure Tools for Visual Studio Code

Project Instructions

Part 1: Create Azure Resources and Deploy Web App

1. Create a Resource group
2. Create an Azure Postgres Database single server
   • Add a new database techconfdb
   • Allow all IPs to connect to database server
   • Restore the database with the backup located in the data folder
3. Create a Service Bus resource with a notificationqueue that will be used to communicate between the web and the function
   • Open the web folder and update the following in the config.py file
     • POSTGRES_URL
     • POSTGRES_USER
     • POSTGRES_PW
     • POSTGRES_DB
     • SERVICE_BUS_CONNECTION_STRING
4. Create App Service plan
5. Create a storage account
6. Deploy the web app

Part 2: Create and Publish Azure Function

1. Create an Azure Function in the function folder that is triggered by the service bus queue created in Part 1.

   Note: Skeleton code has been provided in the README file located in the function folder. You will need to copy/paste this code into the __init.py__ file in the function folder.

   • The Azure Function should do the following:
     • Process the message which is the notification_id
     • Query the database using psycopg2 library for the given notification to retrieve the subject and message
     • Query the database to retrieve a list of attendees (email and first name)
     • Loop through each attendee and send a personalized subject message
     • After the notification, update the notification status with the total number of attendees notified

2. Publish the Azure Function

Part 3: Refactor routes.py

1. Refactor the post logic in web/app/routes.py -> notification() using servicebus queue_client:
   • The notification method on POST should save the notification object and queue the notification id for the function to pick it up
2. Re-deploy the web app to publish changes

Monthly Cost Analysis

Complete a month cost analysis of each Azure resource to give an estimate total cost using the table below:

Azure Resource	Service Tier	Monthly Cost
Azure Postgres Database	Basic	$25.80
Azure Service Bus	Basic	$0.05
App Service Plan and App	Consumption Plan	Free (at current load)
Storage Account	General Purpose	0.0184 per GB * 20 GB ~= $0.92
Function App	Consumption Plan	Free (at current load)

Estimated total monthly cost at current load: $26.77 This assumes a value for the amount of storage i will be using, along with the assumption that the application will never need to scale beyond the "free" app service plan tiers.

Architecture Explanation

An Azure Web App is the appropriate choice to deploy this application, especially over a VM. The app service made it quick and easy to deploy the app, without having to worry about the infrastructure behind the app. Because it is a relatively simple app, it doesn't need the extra features and flexibility that come with deploying from a VM. In addition, the Azure App service makes it very easy to push updates to the application as you change things.

In addition, using a service bus makes the most sense for this application because of the large number of attendees. The service bus queue is a background job in Azure that allows for the job to run in the background simultaneously as the application is running. This means that the admin of the site can continue to usse it withoug resulting in an HTTP timeout or other resultant issues. They can simply send the notification, then continue using the site while the service bus loops and sends emails in the background without disrupting the application.