Sports API Management System

🚀 Project Overview

Welcome to DevOpsChallenge #4! This project creates a containerized API management system for querying real-time sports data. It utilizes Amazon ECS (Fargate) for container orchestration, Amazon API Gateway to expose RESTful endpoints, and integrates with an external Sports API. The goal is to develop a scalable, serverless, and secure solution for managing sports data.

During my initial attempt at building the system, I manually configured everything through the AWS console, and it worked as expected. However, to challenge myself and enhance efficiency, flexibility, and speed, I automated the entire process using Terraform (Infrastructure as Code, IAC). This project posed a few challenges, especially during deployment, but I gained valuable insights and hands-on experience from it.

🏆 What This Project Does

✅ Fetches Sports Data: Retrieves real-time sports data from the SerpAPI. ✅ Containerized Backend: Runs a Flask API inside a Docker container. ✅ Deploys to AWS ECS (Fargate): Ensures a fully managed, serverless infrastructure. ✅ Exposes REST API: Uses API Gateway to provide a secure endpoint. ✅ Monitors with CloudWatch: Tracks API activity and logs errors.

🛠️ Tools & Technologies

• Programming Language: Python 3.x
• Cloud Provider: AWS
• Core AWS Services: ECR, ECS (Fargate), API Gateway, CloudWatch
• Containerization: Docker
• Infrastructure as Code: Terraform
• Security: IAM roles and security groups

🔧 Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you have:

• AWS Account: Sign up if you don’t have one.
• AWS CLI Installed: Configure AWS CLI with valid credentials.
• Terraform Installed: Used for provisioning AWS infrastructure.
• SerpAPI Key: Obtain an API Key from SerpAPI.
• Docker Installed: Required for building and running containers.

🏗️How it works

🚀Deployment Guide

1️⃣ Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/kingdave4/Containerized-Sports-Api.git
cd containerized-sports-api

1️⃣ Create ECR Repo

aws ecr create-repository --repository-name sports-api --region us-east-1

3️⃣ Authenticate, Build, and Push the Docker Image

aws ecr get-login-password --region us-east-1 | docker login --username AWS --password-stdin <AWS_ACCOUNT_ID>.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com

docker build --platform linux/amd64 -t sports-api .
docker tag sports-api:latest <AWS_ACCOUNT_ID>.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sports-api:sports-api-latest
docker push <AWS_ACCOUNT_ID>.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sports-api:sports-api-latest

4️⃣ Deploy Infrastructure Using Terraform

cd terraform
terraform init
terraform plan -var="sports_api_key=<Enter your SerpAPI key>" 
terraform apply -var="sports_api_key=<Enter your SerpAPI key>" -auto-approve

5️⃣ Retrieve API Gateway Endpoint

Once deployment is complete, Terraform will output the API Gateway URL. Use this to test the API:

📂 Project Structure

sports-api-management/
├── app.py                  # Flask application for querying sports data
├── Dockerfile              # Dockerfile to containerize the Flask app
├── requirements.txt        # Python dependencies
├── terraform/              # Terraform configuration files
├── .dockerignore           # Docker ignore file
├── .gitignore              # Git ignore file
└── README.md               # Project documentation

⚙️ AWS Services Breakdown

✅ ECR Reposiory: Stores the docker image in the cloud. ✅ ECS Cluster: Runs the containerized Flask application. ✅ ECS Task Definition: Defines CPU, memory, and environment settings. ✅ ECS Service: Ensures the Flask API runs consistently. ✅ Application Load Balancer: Routes traffic securely. ✅ API Gateway: Exposes the API to external consumers. ✅ CloudWatch Logs: Captures API logs for debugging and monitoring. ✅ IAM Roles: Implements least-privilege access control. ✅ Security Groups: Enforces secure network communication.

🎯 What I Learned

⭐ Automated AWS Infrastructure Provisioning – Enhanced my troubleshooting skills while deploying Terraform code. Successfully provisioned ECS, Load Balancer, and API Gateway using Infrastructure as Code for the first time.

⭐ Containerized Application Deployment – Learned how to deploy and manage containerized applications with Amazon ECS (Fargate).

⭐ API Gateway Integration – Gained experience in setting up API Gateway to control traffic flow and securely expose endpoints.

⭐ Docker Image Management with ECR – Learned how to tag and push local Docker images to Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) for seamless deployment.

🚀 Future Enhancements

🔹 Add Caching: Use Amazon ElastiCache for frequent requests. 🔹 Implement DynamoDB: Store user-specific API queries. 🔹 Secure API Gateway: Use API Keys or IAM authentication. 🔹 CI/CD Pipelines: Automate deployment using GitHub Actions.

🤝 Contributing

Got ideas? Feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request!

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📢 Author

• GitHub: kingdave4

🧹 Clean-Up Instructions

To remove all AWS resources provisioned by Terraform, run the following command:

terraform destroy -var="sports_api_key=<Enter your SerpAPI key>" -auto-approve

This will delete the ECS cluster, API Gateway, Load balancer, and other associated resources, ensuring a clean teardown of the infrastructure. 🚀