30 Days DevOps Challenge - NBA Game Schedule Notification

#Week1-Day2 #DevOpsAllStarsChallenge

Automating NBA Game Schedule Notifications with Azure Services

In this blog post, we'll create a Python function app that requests NBA game schedules from SportsDataIO.io, sends the data to an Azure Service Bus topic, and uses Azure Logic Apps to send an email notification every time a new message is received. We'll also use Visual Studio Code to deploy the function app.

Special Thanks to Ifeanyi Otuonye for providing a very detailed guide and explanation.

Prerequisites

Before we start, ensure you have the following:

• An Azure account

• Azure CLI

• Python installed on your local machine (recommended to use Python 3.10 or 3.11)

• Visual Studio Code installed

• Azure Functions extension for Visual Studio Code

• Azure CLI installed

• sportsdata.io API key

• Resend Account for Email sending (Resend.com)

Let’s get started

Github resource

Let’s download the repository containing the python script for our function app and a shell script to deploy resources such as Resource Group, Azure Service Bus, Topic and Subscription.

git clone https://github.com/annoyedalien/week1-day2.git
cd week1-day2

First we modify the values of variables before running the script

vim initial.sh

# Variables
RESOURCE_GROUP="Resource_Group_Name"
LOCATION="Region"
SERVICE_BUS_NAMESPACE="Service_bus_Namespace"
TOPIC_NAME="Service_Bus_Topic_Name"
SUBSCRIPTION_NAME="Service_Bus_Topic_Subscription_Name"

Save and exit.

Run the shell script

./initial.sh

Navigate to azure portal to check the provisioned resources.

Create Function App

Now let’s create a function app using Visual Studio Code, ensure the necessary extensions installed on VS code

• Azure Functions

• Azure Account

• Azure Resources

For this demo i created a new directory for the function app and open the new directory/folder on VS code

1. Create a Function Project

2. Select the folder that will contain the function project

3. Select a language, since our script is python choose python

4. Select a programming model (choose V2)

5. Select a python interpreter to create the virtual environment (as of creation of this blog python3.12 is not supported) for this demo I used python 3.10

Select a template for the function (Choose Timer trigger)

For the purpose of this demo only, we will use a CRON expression to trigger the function every 30 seconds (30 \ * * * \). We can change the expression to be triggered per second, minutes, hours, days and etc. For a detailed guide on CRON check this https://medium.com/@tushar0618/cron-expression-tutorial-721d85e4c2a7

Once done VScode will generate the resources for the function app

1. Copy the function_app.py, function.json and requirements.txt that came from the github repo and paste it to the directory of the function app, or you can just delete all of the contents of the function_app.py and paste the script that came from the github, same goes for requirements.txt

2. Create .env file to store some variables necessary for the python script

    sudo nano .env
   
    SERVICE_BUS_CONNECTION_STR=[Connection String From Servicebus]
    SERVICE_BUS_TOPIC_NAME=[Service Bus Topic Name]
    NBA_API_KEY =[sportsdata.io API Key]
   

To get service bus connection string

Navigate to your service bus on azure portal, under Shared Access policies, select RootManageSharedAccessKey, Copy the Primary Connection String.

To get the NBA_API_KEY, assuming you have subscribed for a free tier on sportsdata.io

Once all is set for the .env file

Run pip install

pip install -r requirements.txt

After the installation of the requirements

Test the function app

func start function_app.py

It should trigger the script every 30 seconds, To verify, we can check the service bus if it sends the modified game data to the topic/subscriptions.

If the function app works as we expected, it’s time to deploy it to azure.

Deploy function App to Azure

Click on the Lightning Icon and Select Deploy to Azure…

1. Create a function app

2. Enter a globally unique name for the function app

3. Select a runtime stack (choose python)

4. Select location for the new resources

It will create the function app and also creates a storage account to store its files and it uses it for logs and facilitating certain features of the underlying functions infrastructure.

After deployment the function app will run automatically, Verify if the messages on the service bus is being received.

After verifying that the function app works as expected, let’s move on to Logic Apps.

Create Logic Apps

On Azure portal search for Logic Apps

3. Click on Add

4. For demo purpose choose Consumption Plan

5. Enter Logic App Name, Resource Group and Region

6. Review and Create, Hit Create.

7. On Logic App page, Select on Logic App designer

8. Click on Add a trigger

9. 

   On Add a trigger window pane, search for Service bus

10. Choose ‘When a message is received in a topic subscription (auto-complete)’

11. On Create Connection

    

    Enter a Connection Name

    Choose Access Key as Authentication Type and Enter the Connection String

12. Enter Topic Name and Subscription

13. 

    Move back to the Design view and click on + icon and Add an Action

14. 

    For this Send Email function we choose Resend, because here is where we have an account, you can use other Send Email functions like SendGrid, Outlook, GMail and etc.

15. 

    Enter a Connection Name and API key for Resend

16. On Parameters Tab, Select From, To, Subject and Text

    

    15. Enter the details From, To and Subject, and on Text Field click on a lightning icon beside it

    

    And Select Content, This will forward the content of messaged receive on the Service Bus subscription to your Email address.

    

17. On the design view Hit Save

Now It’s time to verify if the Logic App run successfully

You can also check on Resend.com of the successful email sent.

Conclusion

By following these steps, you've created a Python function app that fetches NBA game schedules from SportsDataIO, sends the data to an Azure Service Bus topics and subscription, and uses Azure Logic Apps to send email notifications whenever a new message is received. This setup leverages the power of Azure's serverless and messaging services to automate and streamline your workflow.

Clean up the resources

delete the resource groups created for this demo.