# Deploy Cerbos on Azure Container Apps

Run the Cerbos PDP as a managed container on Azure Container Apps with built-in scaling and revision management.

[Container documentation](https://docs.cerbos.dev/cerbos/latest/installation/container.html)

### Managed containers

Deploy the Cerbos container image to Azure Container Apps without managing underlying infrastructure or orchestrators

### Revision management

Container Apps manages revisions automatically, enabling traffic splitting between Cerbos versions during upgrades

### Scale-to-zero

Scale Cerbos replicas based on HTTP traffic, including scaling to zero when there are no incoming requests

## What is Cerbos?

Cerbos is an open-source authorization layer that decouples access control from your application code. It runs as a stateless Policy Decision Point (PDP) that evaluates fine-grained policies at request time.

Authorization policies are written in human-readable YAML supporting [RBAC](/content/features-benefits-and-use-cases/rbac/index.html), [ABAC](/content/features-benefits-and-use-cases/abac/index.html), and [conditional rules](/content/features-benefits-and-use-cases/pbac/index.html). They can be updated, tested, and deployed independently of your application.

Deploying Cerbos via Azure Container Apps gives you a production-ready authorization service that scales horizontally and fits naturally into your existing infrastructure and observability stack.

[Policy-as-codeHuman-readable YAML policies managed like source code](/content/features-benefits-and-use-cases/human-readable-authorization/index.html) [Scalable PDPStateless policy decision point with sub-millisecond latency](/content/features-benefits-and-use-cases/scalability/index.html) [Centralized managementManage, test, and deploy policies from a single control plane](/content/features-benefits-and-use-cases/centralized-management/index.html)

### How to deploy Cerbos on Azure Container Apps

1. **Create the container app**, Run `az containerapp create` with the official Cerbos container image and configure ingress on the HTTP port.
2. **Configure policy loading**, Set environment variables to point Cerbos at a Git repository or Cerbos Hub for policy storage.
3. **Configure scaling rules**, Set minimum and maximum replica counts and scaling triggers based on your traffic patterns.
4. **Connect your application**, Use a Cerbos SDK to send authorization checks to the container app's ingress endpoint.

## FAQ

### How do I deploy Cerbos on Azure Container Apps?

Create a container app using `az containerapp create` with the official Cerbos container image. Configure ingress to expose the HTTP port and set environment variables for policy loading.

### Does Cerbos require any external dependencies?

No. Cerbos requires no database or message queue. Policies load from a Git repository or Cerbos Hub, both compatible with Azure Container Apps.

### How does scaling work with Cerbos on Container Apps?

Azure Container Apps scales Cerbos replicas based on HTTP traffic or custom rules. Cerbos is stateless, so each replica operates independently.

## Cerbos + Azure Container Apps

- Cerbos runs alongside your workloads in Azure Container Apps
- No external databases or message queues required
- Built-in metrics, distributed tracing, and structured logging
- Stateless PDP instances scale horizontally