A cloud-native Business Intelligence engine that correlates institutional financial news sentiment with SOXL market volatility — automated, serverless, and live on Azure.
| Layer | Technology | Badge |
|---|---|---|
| Frontend | Streamlit on Azure App Service |   |
| Backend | Azure Functions (Python v2) |  |
| Database | Azure Cosmos DB (NoSQL) |  |
| Secrets | Azure Key Vault |  |
| Auth | JWT + bcrypt |  |
| Data Sources | Alpha Vantage + yfinance |   |
| Monitoring | Azure Application Insights |  |
| CI/CD | GitHub Actions |  |
| Region | Azure Malaysia West |  |
| Service | URL |
|---|---|
| Production Dashboard | sentitrex-web-crgsc0d5bve4d8e2.malaysiawest-01.azurewebsites.net |
| API Gateway | https://sentitrex-api-bmf6dvdchabkcedx.malaysiawest-01.azurewebsites.net/api |
⚠️ Note on Availability: As this is a university course project, the live deployment links below may be temporarily paused or inaccessible due to Azure credit limitations or post-grading resource management.
SentitreX is a cloud-native BI engine that:
- Ingests institutional financial news from Alpha Vantage (hourly, 24×/day) and SOXL price data from yfinance (every 5 minutes, 288×/day)
- Filters out noise — only articles with a SOXL relevance score
> 0.4are persisted - Stores deduplicated JSON documents in Azure Cosmos DB using MD5-hashed article URLs as unique IDs, with a 90-day TTL policy
- Visualises a dual-axis Plotly candlestick + sentiment chart on a Streamlit dashboard secured by JWT authentication
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ SentitreX Cloud │
│ │
│ ┌─────────────┐ HTTPS / JWT ┌──────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Streamlit │◄───────────────────►│ Azure Functions │ │
│ │ App Service│ (REST API calls) │ (HTTP Trigger) │ │
│ │ (Frontend) │ └──────────┬───────────┘ │
│ └─────────────┘ │ │
│ ┌─────────▼──────────┐ │
│ ┌─────────────┐ Timer (Hourly) │ Azure Functions │ │
│ │Alpha Vantage│────────────────────►│ (Timer Trigger) │ │
│ │ API │ └─────────┬──────────┘ │
│ └─────────────┘ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ ┌─────────────┐ Timer (5-min) ┌───────────────────────┐ │
│ │ yfinance │──────────────────►│ Azure Cosmos DB │ │
│ │ (Yahoo) │ │ (newsArticles, │ │
│ └─────────────┘ │ priceSnapshots, │ │
│ │ users containers) │ │
│ ┌─────────────┐ └───────────────────────┘ │
│ │ Key Vault │◄── Managed Identity ──── All Functions │
│ │ (Secrets) │ │
│ └─────────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Design Patterns used: Event-Driven Serverless · Pipe-and-Filter · Decoupled Three-Tier (Presentation / Logic / Data)
| Function | Trigger | Schedule | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
sentiment_scraper |
Timer | 0 0 * * * * (hourly) |
Fetch & persist news sentiment from Alpha Vantage |
price_scraper |
Timer | Every 5 min | Fetch SOXL OHLCV snapshots via yfinance |
get_news |
HTTP GET | On demand | Return filtered sentiment data to frontend |
get_prices |
HTTP GET | On demand | Return price history to frontend |
login_user |
HTTP POST | On demand | Validate credentials, issue JWT |
register_user |
HTTP POST | On demand | Create bcrypt-hashed user account |
| Measure | Implementation |
|---|---|
| Secrets management | Azure Key Vault via System-Assigned Managed Identity — no hardcoded credentials |
| Transport security | HTTPS Only enforced on App Service (TLS 1.2+) |
| Auth | JWT session tokens + bcrypt password hashing |
| Data at rest | Cosmos DB Microsoft-managed encryption |
| RBAC | Anonymous → Auth page only · Trader → Dashboard + API · Scraper → Cosmos DB write · Admin → Full manage |
| Idempotency | MD5-hashed article URLs as Cosmos DB document IDs prevent duplicates |
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Asset targeted | SOXL (Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X ETF) |
| News source | Alpha Vantage (institutional news only, English-language) |
| Sentiment calls/day | 24 (stays within free tier 25-call limit) |
| Price polling | Every 5 min via yfinance (no quota limit) |
| Relevance filter | Articles with SOXL score < 0.4 discarded |
| Freshness filter | 24-hour lookback window on every scraper run |
| Data retention | 90-day TTL on all containers (auto-purge) |
| Partition key | /ticker for sub-10ms query latency |
Python 3.10+
Azure Functions Core Tools v4
Azurite (local storage emulator)# 1. Clone and activate environment
git clone https://github.com/Alone1101/SentitreX.git
cd SentitreX
python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1 # Windows
# source .venv/bin/activate # macOS/Linux
pip install -r requirements.txt
# 2. Create local.settings.json (never commit this file){
"IsEncrypted": false,
"Values": {
"AzureWebJobsStorage": "UseDevelopmentStorage=true",
"FUNCTIONS_WORKER_RUNTIME": "python",
"KEY_VAULT_URL": "YOUR_KEY_VAULT_URI",
"CosmosDbConnectionString": "YOUR_LOCAL_COSMOS_CONNECTION_STRING",
"ALPHA-VANTAGE-KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY",
"JWT-SECRET": "YOUR_LOCAL_SECRET"
}
}# 3. Start Azurite (VS Code: Ctrl+Shift+P → "Azurite: Start")
# 4. Terminal 1 — Backend
func start
# 5. Terminal 2 — Frontend
streamlit run app.py- Azure Application Insights — Server response time, failed requests, availability (tracked live)
- Live Metrics Stream — CPU, request rates, real-time execution logs (sub-second latency, no persistent alert cost)
- Structured logs —
INFO/WARNING/ERRORlevels piped to Application Insights Traces table
| Member | Contributions |
|---|---|
| Wong Jin Xuan | Report, Azure Functions backend, CI/CD pipeline, Key Vault, Application Insights, JWT/bcrypt auth |
| Ng Kin Yew Dexter | Azure subscriptions & IAM, Resource Group, Cosmos DB partitioning, ERD, Streamlit dashboard |
| Seon Hong Kok Meng | Use case diagrams, DFD, Streamlit dashboard UI, login & sign-up pages |
COMP3207 – Cloud Application Development (UoSM) 2025/26 University of Southampton Malaysia (UoSM)
Built with cloud on Microsoft Azure · Deployed in Malaysia West