Azure Cognitive Services Containers: AI On-Premises

Run Cognitive Services in containers for data residency, low latency, or disconnected scenarios. Same AI APIs, running wherever you need them.

Available Containers

Service	Container
Text Analytics	Sentiment, Key Phrases, Language Detection
Computer Vision	Read (OCR)
Face	Face Detection
Speech	Speech-to-Text, Text-to-Speech
Form Recognizer	Layout, Custom
LUIS	Language Understanding

Running Sentiment Analysis

docker run --rm -it -p 5000:5000 \
    mcr.microsoft.com/azure-cognitive-services/textanalytics/sentiment:latest \
    Eula=accept \
    Billing=https://myresource.cognitiveservices.azure.com/ \
    ApiKey=<your-key>

Container Configuration

# docker-compose.yml
version: '3'
services:
  sentiment:
    image: mcr.microsoft.com/azure-cognitive-services/textanalytics/sentiment:latest
    ports:
      - "5000:5000"
    environment:
      - Eula=accept
      - Billing=https://myresource.cognitiveservices.azure.com/
      - ApiKey=${COGNITIVE_SERVICES_KEY}
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          cpus: '4'
          memory: 8G

  keyphrase:
    image: mcr.microsoft.com/azure-cognitive-services/textanalytics/keyphrase:latest
    ports:
      - "5001:5000"
    environment:
      - Eula=accept
      - Billing=https://myresource.cognitiveservices.azure.com/
      - ApiKey=${COGNITIVE_SERVICES_KEY}

Calling the Container

import requests

# Same API as cloud service
url = "http://localhost:5000/text/analytics/v3.1/sentiment"

documents = {
    "documents": [
        {"id": "1", "language": "en", "text": "I love this product!"},
        {"id": "2", "language": "en", "text": "Terrible experience."}
    ]
}

response = requests.post(url, json=documents)
results = response.json()

for doc in results["documents"]:
    print(f"Document {doc['id']}: {doc['sentiment']} (confidence: {doc['confidenceScores']})")

Speech-to-Text Container

docker run --rm -it -p 5000:5000 \
    --memory 4g --cpus 4 \
    mcr.microsoft.com/azure-cognitive-services/speechservices/speech-to-text:latest \
    Eula=accept \
    Billing=https://myresource.cognitiveservices.azure.com/ \
    ApiKey=<your-key>

# Transcribe audio
with open("audio.wav", "rb") as audio_file:
    response = requests.post(
        "http://localhost:5000/speech/recognition/conversation/cognitiveservices/v1",
        headers={
            "Content-Type": "audio/wav",
            "Accept": "application/json"
        },
        data=audio_file.read()
    )

print(response.json()["DisplayText"])

Form Recognizer Container

docker run --rm -it -p 5000:5000 \
    mcr.microsoft.com/azure-cognitive-services/form-recognizer/layout:latest \
    Eula=accept \
    Billing=https://myresource.cognitiveservices.azure.com/ \
    ApiKey=<your-key>

Kubernetes Deployment

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: sentiment-service
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: sentiment
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: sentiment
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: sentiment
        image: mcr.microsoft.com/azure-cognitive-services/textanalytics/sentiment:latest
        ports:
        - containerPort: 5000
        env:
        - name: Eula
          value: "accept"
        - name: Billing
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              name: cognitive-secrets
              key: billing-endpoint
        - name: ApiKey
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              name: cognitive-secrets
              key: api-key
        resources:
          requests:
            memory: "4Gi"
            cpu: "2"
          limits:
            memory: "8Gi"
            cpu: "4"
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: sentiment-service
spec:
  selector:
    app: sentiment
  ports:
  - port: 80
    targetPort: 5000
  type: ClusterIP

Disconnected Containers

For air-gapped environments:

# Request disconnected container license
# Then run without API key
docker run --rm -it -p 5000:5000 \
    mcr.microsoft.com/azure-cognitive-services/textanalytics/sentiment:latest \
    Eula=accept \
    License=/path/to/license.txt

Cognitive Services containers: AI wherever your data lives.