Deploying Flask to IIS

To deploy the new API application on a Microsoft Server with Internet Information Services (IIS) installed, we have to download some Python code, and an IIS module called FastCGI. Once configured, the application will respond to web requests from any allowed machine.  

Flask and web servers

While Flask includes a local web server for testing purposes, it is not designed for production deployments. Flask works best with web servers like Apache or IIS. While there is a lot of literature on how to deploy Flask with Apache, it is less common to find good instructions on how to deploy it using IIS. As most GIS professionals work with Windows servers or have access to them, these instructions will focus on deployment with IIS 7.

WSGI

The Web Server Gateway Interface (WSGI) is a Python specification that allows for a Python executable to be used to respond to web requests. WSGI is built into Python web frameworks such as Flask and Django.

To enable the use of the Flask web framework...