Experiment with Traefik

[SarahE-Dev]

🧪 Experiment with Traefik as a Reverse Proxy for Flask Microservice

📌 Issue Summary

Set up and test [Traefik](https://traefik.io/) as a reverse proxy for our Flask model microservice, even though we currently only have one service running. This is a learning and future-proofing task to evaluate Traefik’s potential benefits as our microservice architecture grows.

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🎯 Goals

• Set up Traefik in the local development environment (Docker or Minikube).
• Route traffic through Traefik to the Flask model service (/predict endpoint).
• Access the Traefik dashboard.
• Enable basic TLS for learning purposes.

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🔧 Tasks

• Add a basic traefik.yml configuration file.
• Configure Traefik as a service in docker-compose.yml or set up as an Ingress controller in Minikube.
• Expose the Flask app through Traefik.
• Test sending a request through Traefik to the /predict endpoint.
• Document what was learned, benefits, and drawbacks in the issue comments.

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🤔 Why This Matters

Even though we only have one container right now, Traefik makes routing, scaling, and HTTPS simpler as we grow. Getting familiar with it now can save us time later.

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📎 Resources

• [Traefik Documentation](https://doc.traefik.io/traefik/)
• [Traefik with Docker Guide](https://doc.traefik.io/traefik/getting-started/quick-start/)
• [Traefik with Kubernetes](https://doc.traefik.io/traefik/getting-started/install-traefik/#use-the-helm-chart)

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