FastMCP on Azure App Service

Deploying a Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server on Azure Using Python and FastMCP.

Important Considerations

⚠️ Cold Start Behavior

• Azure App Service has a significant startup time when the instance is cold
• The first MCP request may fail or timeout if the instance is starting up
• Recommendation: Keep at least one instance always running to ensure reliable MCP responses

💡 Best Practices

• Configure Always On in your Azure App Service settings to prevent cold starts
• Consider using a higher pricing tier (Basic or above) for production workloads
• Monitor startup times and adjust the instance warm-up strategy as needed

Installation

Create Resources

1. Create an Azure Web App
   • Use the Azure Portal
   • or Quickstart as Helper

Deploy

Option 1: Deploy via Azure Pipeline

1. Create a Service Connection in Azure DevOps

   • Navigate to: Project Settings → Service Connections → New Service Connection
   • Select Azure Resource Manager
   • Choose the appropriate Subscription and Resource Group

2. Create an Azure Pipeline

   • In your Azure DevOps Project, navigate to: Pipelines → New Pipeline
   • Select your repository source (GitHub, Azure Repos, etc.)
   • Choose Existing Azure Pipelines YAML file
   • Select the azure-pipelines.yml file from this repository

3. Configure Pipeline Variables

   • Set the Azure Web App name and other required variables in the pipeline

4. Run the Pipeline

   • Save and run the pipeline to deploy the FastMCP application to Azure App Service

Option 2: Deploy via Command Line

1. Login to Azure

   az login
   

2. Deploy to Azure App Service

   az webapp up --name <your-app-name> --resource-group <your-resource-group> --runtime PYTHON:3.12
   

3. Configure Startup Command

   az webapp config set --name <your-app-name> --resource-group <your-resource-group> --startup-file startup.sh
   

Test

Use the MCP Inspector to test: npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector

Attachment

Sample applications are available for the other frameworks here:

• Django https://github.com/Azure-Samples/msdocs-python-django-webapp-quickstart
• FastAPI https://github.com/Azure-Samples/msdocs-python-fastapi-webapp-quickstart

If you need an Azure account, you can create one for free.