Azure Container Apps¶

Run grafeo-server on Azure Container Apps with scale-to-zero. Idle instances cost nothing (only storage).

Architecture¶

Internet → Container Apps (consumption plan) → Blob Storage / Managed Disk

Compute: Container Apps consumption plan (~$0.000012/vCPU-second, scales to zero)
Storage: Azure Blob Storage (~$0.018/GB/month) or Managed Disk for lower latency
Networking: built-in ingress with TLS termination

Prerequisites¶

Azure CLI (az) installed and authenticated
A resource group (examples use grafeo-rg in westeurope)

Deploy¶

1. Create the Container Apps Environment¶

az containerapp env create \
  --name grafeo-env \
  --resource-group grafeo-rg \
  --location westeurope

2. Create a Storage Account (for persistence)¶

az storage account create \
  --name grafeostorage \
  --resource-group grafeo-rg \
  --location westeurope \
  --sku Standard_LRS

az storage share create \
  --name grafeo-data \
  --account-name grafeostorage

3. Mount Storage to Environment¶

az containerapp env storage set \
  --name grafeo-env \
  --resource-group grafeo-rg \
  --storage-name grafeo-storage \
  --azure-file-account-name grafeostorage \
  --azure-file-account-key $(az storage account keys list --account-name grafeostorage --query '[0].value' -o tsv) \
  --azure-file-share-name grafeo-data \
  --access-mode ReadWrite

4. Deploy grafeo-server¶

az containerapp create \
  --name grafeo-server \
  --resource-group grafeo-rg \
  --environment grafeo-env \
  --image grafeo/grafeo-server:full \
  --target-port 7474 \
  --ingress external \
  --min-replicas 0 \
  --max-replicas 3 \
  --cpu 1.0 \
  --memory 2.0Gi \
  --env-vars \
    GRAFEO_DATA_DIR=/data \
    GRAFEO_LOG_FORMAT=json \
    GRAFEO_AUTH_TOKEN=secretref:auth-token \
  --secrets auth-token=$GRAFEO_AUTH_TOKEN

Key flags:

--min-replicas 0: enables scale-to-zero (no cost when idle)
--max-replicas 3: auto-scales under load
--ingress external: creates a public HTTPS endpoint

5. Get the Endpoint¶

az containerapp show \
  --name grafeo-server \
  --resource-group grafeo-rg \
  --query properties.configuration.ingress.fqdn \
  -o tsv

Your Grafeo instance is available at https://<fqdn>/.

Scale-to-Zero Behavior¶

Container Apps scales to zero when no requests arrive for the configured cooldown period (default: 300 seconds). On the next request, cold start takes 1-3 seconds depending on the tier.

To keep the instance warm for lower latency, set --min-replicas 1.

Cost Estimate¶

Usage	Compute	Storage (10 GB)	Total
Idle (scale-to-zero)	$0.00	~$0.18	~$0.18/mo
Light (1 hr/day queries)	~$1.30	~$0.18	~$1.48/mo
Moderate (8 hrs/day)	~$10.40	~$0.18	~$10.58/mo

Monitoring¶

# View logs
az containerapp logs show \
  --name grafeo-server \
  --resource-group grafeo-rg

# View metrics
az monitor metrics list \
  --resource $(az containerapp show --name grafeo-server --resource-group grafeo-rg --query id -o tsv) \
  --metric Requests

Updating¶

az containerapp update \
  --name grafeo-server \
  --resource-group grafeo-rg \
  --image grafeo/grafeo-server:full

Container Apps performs a rolling update with zero downtime.