A DevOps demonstration project showcasing Microservices Architecture and Redis caching with a Streamlit web application. This project simulates a high-traffic news dashboard to demonstrate the performance benefits of caching (reducing load times from seconds to milliseconds).

This application demonstrates:

• Redis Caching: Fast data retrieval using Redis as an in-memory layer.
• Docker Compose: Orchestrating multi-container environments.
• Service Discovery: Internal networking between containers.
• Performance Comparison: Visual demonstration of cache hits vs. cache misses.

The application consists of two services running in a private Docker network:

1. news-app: Python/Streamlit application (Port 8501) - The Frontend.
2. redis-db: Redis cache database (Port 6379) - The Backend Storage.

• Docker Desktop installed and running.
• No Python installation required (runs entirely in containers).

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/Nipuna-Lakruwan/news-dashboard.git
   cd news-dashboard

2. Start the application:

   docker-compose up

3. Access the dashboard: Open your browser and navigate to: http://localhost:8501

4. Stop the application:

   docker-compose down

1. First Request (Cache Miss):

   • User clicks "Refresh News".
   • App checks Redis cache → Empty.
   • Simulates a slow API fetch (3-second delay).
   • Stores result in Redis with a 60-second TTL (Time To Live).

2. Subsequent Requests (Cache Hit):

   • User clicks "Refresh News" again within 60s.
   • App finds data in Redis.
   • Returns instantly (0ms delay).

The application displays mock data for:

• Headline: Main news story.
• Breaking: Critical alerts.
• Sports: Match updates.

• App Container: Exposes port 8501. Depends on redis-db.
• Redis Container: Uses official redis:alpine image (lightweight).
• Networking: Containers communicate via Docker Compose's internal DNS (hostname: redis-db).

• Expiration Time: 60 seconds.
• Key Name: lanka_news.

If you edit app.py, you must rebuild the container:

docker-compose up --build

To manually inspect keys inside the running container:

docker exec -it news-dashboard-redis-db-1 redis-cli

Common commands:

• KEYS * : List all cached keys.
• TTL lanka_news : See how many seconds are left before expiration.

• Data Persistence: Add Docker Volumes (-v) to persist Redis data after container shutdown.
• Real API Integration: Replace the mock data with a real request to a News API.
• Load Balancing: Add Nginx to distribute traffic across multiple app containers.

This project is created for educational purposes.

Built for DevOps learning