Containerizing Python Web Apps with Docker, Django, Flask and Nginx

In this lightning talk I would like to talk about how we can use Docker to containerize run our Python web applications like Django with Postgresql database and Flask along with Nginx and uWSGI server. It allows developers to deploy and run an application with all it’s dependencies as one package.

Docker enables you to rapidly deploy server environments in “containers.” Developing Python projects in local environments can get pretty challenging if more than one project is being developed at the same time. Compiling a project may take time as we need to manage versions, set up dependencies and configurations for it. Before, we used to install all project requirements directly in our local environment and then focus on writing the code.

We’ll first take a look at how we can use docker-compose to deploy our Django application with a Postgresql database. I’ll be using slides and code snaps to demonstrate how to create Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml file to run your web app and postgres database together. After that we’ll look at a step-by-step process to containerize our Flask web app to use Nginx and uWSGI server and also how to create configurations files for this task. Although, even many beginner and intermediate developers are already familiar with this topic but I still decided to talk on this because DevOps can be very helpful for Python development and it can save us a lot of time.

This lightning talk will give attendees a quick insight on how they can use DevOps tools to run multiple web services. Deploying and testing heavy web application can be a hectic task sometimes and this is why I decided to talk on this even though tutorials for these things can be found on the internet. I’ll try to avoid creating any confusion and this is why I’ll be talking about both Django and Flask which are the most commonly used Python frameworks for Web Development. Technical requirements and prerequisites are Django, Flask , Docker and also a person should be familiar with atleast some basic concepts of docker and web development. Talking about why I am a suitable person to talk on this is because I am a Computer Science student and have a decent experience of working with Python Web Apps, Test Driven development and DevOps. I have worked on several web projects and also working as DevOps intern.