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How to Create an App Configuration Store

Prerequisites

You should have an Azure account with an active subscription. Click here to create one.

Introduction

Managing configurations across multiple environments can be complex and challenging in today's cloud-native application development. Developers often need a solution that provides a centralized way to handle settings such as connection strings, API keys, or feature flags without embedding them directly in the application code.

App Configuration Store provides a unified platform to store, retrieve, and manage configuration settings securely. One of the most widely used services for this purpose is Azure App Configuration, part of Microsoft Azure's suite of cloud services. This article will guide you through creating an App Configuration Store in Azure, its benefits, and how to integrate it into your application for effective configuration management.

Table of Contents

  1. What is an App Configuration Store?
  2. Why Use an App Configuration Store?
  3. Step-by-Step Guide to Creating an App Configuration Store
    • Set up an Azure Account
    • Create an App Configuration Store
    • Create a key value
    • Integrate the App Configuration Store into Your Application
  4. Advanced Features
    • Feature Management with Feature Flags
    • Versioning and Labels
  5. Conclusion

What is an App Configuration Store?

Azure App Configuration provides a service to centrally manage application settings and feature flags. Modern programs, especially programs running in a cloud, generally have many components that are distributed in nature. Spreading configuration settings across these components can lead to hard-to-troubleshoot errors during an application deployment. Use App Configuration to store all the settings for your application and secure their accesses in one place.

Azure App Configuration allows developers to,

  • Manage application settings centrally.
  • Apply environment-specific configurations (e.g., development, production).
  • Enable or disable features dynamically using feature flags.
  • Securely store sensitive information.

By using such a service, you can streamline the management of configuration data across cloud-native applications, microservices, and multiple environments.

Why use an App Configuration Store?

Storing configurations in a single location allows teams to manage settings consistently across different environments, such as development, staging, and production. This prevents configuration sprawl and reduces the likelihood of errors during deployments. Instead of redeploying your app every time a configuration changes, you can update settings in the configuration store and have the app retrieve the latest settings automatically.

App Configuration provides the following benefits.

  • A fully managed service that can be set up in minutes
  • Flexible key representations and mappings
  • Tagging with labels
  • A point-in-time replay of settings
  • Dedicated UI for feature flag management
  • Comparison of two sets of configurations on custom-defined dimensions
  • Enhanced security through Azure-managed identities
  • Encryption of sensitive information at rest and in transit
  • Native integration with popular frameworks

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating an App Configuration Store

Set up an Azure account using the link given above.

Create an App Configuration store

  1. On the Azure portal's homepage, enter App Configuration in the search box at the top and select App Configuration from the search results.
    App Configuration
  2. Select Create or Create app configuration.
    Create app configuration
  3. Enter all the required information as given below.
    Required information
  4. Select Review + Create to validate your information.
  5. Select Create, the deployment might take a few minutes.
    Deployment
  6. After the deployment finishes, go to the App Configuration resource. Select Settings > Access settings. Make a note of the primary read-only key connection string. You'll use this connection string later to configure your application and communicate with the App Configuration store that you created.
    App Configuration resource

Create a Key Value

  1. Select Operations > Configuration Explorer> Create > Key-value to add a key-value to a store.
    Configuration Explorer
  2. Leave Label and Content-Type with their default values, then select Apply

Integrate the App Configuration Store into Your Application

  1. Install the NuGet Package: Install the Azure App Configuration package using NuGet 
    dotnet add package Microsoft.Azure.AppConfiguration.AspNetCore
  2. Configure Your Application to Use App Configuration: Modify your Program.cs file to include the configuration settings. 
    using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

// Connect to Azure App Configuration
builder.Configuration.AddAzureAppConfiguration(options =>
{
    options.Connect("<your-connection-string>")
           .Select(KeyFilter.Any, LabelFilter.Null);
});

var app = builder.Build();
app.Run();
  3. In the above code enter the connection string, which you can find in Settings > Access keys.

Advanced Features

  1. Feature Management with Feature Flags: Feature flags allow you to enable or disable specific features in your application without redeploying the code. This is useful for continuous delivery and testing. You can manage feature flags through the Azure App Configuration interface or programmatically via the SDK.
  2. Versioning and Labels: Labels in Azure App Configuration enable versioning by allowing you to define multiple versions of the same configuration key. For instance, you might label some settings as "Production" and others as "Development," allowing different environments to retrieve different values for the same configuration key.

Conclusion

Azure App Configuration offers a powerful and scalable solution for managing configuration settings in modern applications. With its centralized management, secure storage, and dynamic feature toggling, it simplifies the process of handling configurations across multiple environments. By using an App Configuration Store, you can ensure consistency, security, and flexibility in how your application handles settings, reducing the complexity associated with manual configuration management.

With Azure’s rich feature set, including labels for versioning and feature management, you can build more dynamic and resilient applications.

References

Microsoft Azure Official Documentation

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