Azure Storage

Azure Storage

Azure Storage is Microsoft’s cloud-based storage solution that provides scalable, durable, and secure storage for a wide variety of data types. It is designed to handle structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data with high availability and global redundancy.

Key Features

• Scalability: Can store massive volumes of data, from GBs to petabytes.
• Durability & Availability: Data is replicated across multiple datacenters.
• Security: Encryption at rest and in transit, with role-based access control.
• Cost-effective: Pay-as-you-go pricing with multiple tiers (Hot, Cool, Archive).
• Global Reach: Available in all Azure regions worldwide.

Types of Azure Storage

• Blob Storage: Stores unstructured data like images, videos, documents, and backups.
• File Storage: Managed file shares accessible via SMB protocol, suitable for lift-and-shift apps.
• Queue Storage: Provides reliable message queuing for communication between components of distributed applications.
• Table Storage: Stores large volumes of structured NoSQL data with key/attribute pairs.
• Disk Storage: Persistent disks for Azure Virtual Machines (similar to hard drives).

Common Use Cases

• Hosting static website content.
• Storing application logs, IoT data, or big data workloads.
• Backup and disaster recovery solutions.
• Media storage for streaming services.
• File sharing across teams and applications.

Example Scenario

Scenario: A healthcare company wants to securely store patient records and medical images.

1. Patient documents (PDFs) are stored in Azure Blob Storage.
2. Medical images (X-rays, scans) are uploaded to Blob Storage with encryption enabled.
3. Doctors access reports via an app connected to Azure File Storage.
4. Queue Storage manages background processing tasks, such as converting scans into reports.
5. All data is protected with Azure Active Directory authentication and replicated for disaster recovery.

Azure Storage Types

Azure Storage is Microsoft's cloud storage solution that is highly available, massively scalable, and durable for a wide variety of data. The service is made up of several distinct types, which are designed for different use cases and are all managed through a single Azure Storage account.

Azure Storage Types

Azure Blob Storage

This is an object storage solution optimized for storing massive amounts of unstructured data, such as text, images, videos, audio, and backups.

• Hot tier: For frequently accessed data, with higher storage costs but lower access costs.
• Cool tier: For infrequently accessed data, with lower storage costs but higher access costs.
• Cold tier: For rarely accessed data that still requires fast retrieval, offering even lower storage costs.
• Archive tier: For data that is rarely accessed and has a flexible retrieval time of several hours. This tier has the lowest storage costs.

Types of blobs: Block blobs for text and binary data, Append blobs for logging, and Page blobs for random access files like virtual hard disks (VHDs).

Use cases: Serving images or documents, streaming media, and large-scale data analytics.

Azure Files

Provides fully managed file shares in the cloud that can be accessed via the standard Server Message Block (SMB) protocol or Network File System (NFS) protocol.

Features: Can be mounted by on-premises or cloud deployments of Windows, Linux, and macOS. It can also be cached on Windows Servers with Azure File Sync.

Use cases: "Lift and shift" applications that depend on file shares and replace or supplement on-premises file servers.

Azure Queue Storage

A service for storing a large number of messages that can be retrieved by an application from anywhere in the world via HTTP or HTTPS.

Messages: Can be up to 64 KB in size and a single queue can contain millions of messages.

Use cases: Building flexible and scalable applications by decoupling components and creating a backlog of work to be processed asynchronously.

Azure Table Storage

A NoSQL datastore that stores large amounts of structured, non-relational data in the cloud.

Schema-less design: Allows you to store flexible datasets like user data, address books, or device information.

Note: For new projects, Microsoft recommends the Table API in Azure Cosmos DB for its enhanced features and global distribution.

Azure Disk Storage

Offers block-level storage volumes for Azure Virtual Machines (VMs).

Managed disks: Virtual hard disks (VHDs) that are stored as page blobs and managed by Azure. They are available in various performance tiers, including Ultra Disk for the highest performance.

Use cases: Providing persistent, high-performance data storage for I/O-intensive workloads like databases and mission-critical applications.

Azure Elastic SAN

A fully integrated, scalable storage area network (SAN) solution for consolidating large-scale, I/O-intensive workloads like databases.

Azure Container Storage

A volume management, deployment, and orchestration service built natively for containers running on Kubernetes clusters.

💡 Pro Tip

Use Azure Storage Explorer (a free tool) to easily manage and monitor your Azure Storage resources from your desktop.