2.3.4 Describe Azure Storage Services

Description of Azure storage services.

• Azure Blobs: massively scalable store for text and binary data. Also supports big data analysis via Data Lake Storage Gen2.

• Azure Files: managed file shares for cloud or on-prem deployments.

• Azure Queues: messaging store for reliable messaging between application components.

• Azure Disks: block level storage volumes for Azure VMs.

• Azure Tables: NoSQL table option for structured, non-relational data.

Benefits of Azure Storage

• Durable and highly available: data is safe even if transient hardware failures occur. You can opt to replicate data across datacenters or geographical regions.

• Secure: all data is encrypted, you have fine-grained control over who has access.

• Scalable: designed to be massively scalable.

• Managed: Azure handles hardware maintenance, updates, and critical issues.

• Accessible: accessible from anywhere in the world over HTTP or HTTPS. Client libraries are in a multitude of languages: .NET, Java, Node.js, Python, PHP, Ruby, Go and others. Azure storage supports Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell.

Azure Blobs

Unstructured data storage for text or binary data. Can manage thousands of simultaneous uploads, massive amounts of video data, and can be reached from anywhere with an internet connection. Blobs aren't limited to file formats, they can contain data from IoT devices or custom data from an app. Blob storage is ideal for:

• Serving images or documents to a browser

• Storing files for distributed access

• Streaming video and audio

• Storing data for backup and restore, disaster recovery and archiving

• Storing data for analysis by an on-prem or Azure-hosted service

Accessing Blob Storage

Can be accessed from anywhere in the world via HTTPS or HTTP. Can be accessed via URLs, the Azure Storage REST API, Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI or an Azure Storage Client library.

Blob Storage Tiers

Data stored can grow exponentially. To manage this, data should be organized based on attributes like frequency of access and planned retention period. Azure Storage offers different access tiers for your storage, helping you to store objective data in the most cost-effective way. The tiers include:

• Hot Access Tier: optimized for storing data that is accessed frequently (images on a website)

• Cool Access Tier: optimized for data that is infrequently accessed and stored for at least 30 days (invoices for customers)

• Cold Access Tier: optimized for data that is infrequently accessed and stored for at least 90 days

• Archive Access Tier: for data rarely accessed and stored for at least 180 days, with flexible latency requirements (long term backups)

The following considerations apply to these:

• Hot and cool tiers are set at account level. Cold and archive tiers aren't available at account level.

• Hot, cool, cold and archive tiers can be set at blob level, during or after upload.

• Data in cool and cold tiers can tolerate slightly lower availability. For cool and cold data has a lower SLA and higher access costs.

• Archive storage stores data offline and offers the lowest storage costs.

Azure Files

Azure File storage offers fully managed shared that can be accessed via SMB or NFS. Azure Files shares can be mounted concurrently by cloud or on-prem deployments. SMB Azure File shares can be accessed from Windows, Linux or macOS. NFS shares are accessible from from Linux or macOS.

Azure Files Benefits

• Shared Access: supports SMB and NFS, meaning you can replace on-prem shares with Azure file shares without worrying about app compatibility.

• Fully Managed: Azure file shares can be created without needing to manage hardware or an OS.

• Scripting and Tooling: PowerShell cmdlets and Azure CLI can be used to create, mount and manage Azure file shares. These can be created using Azure Portal and Azure Storage Explorer.

• Resiliency: Built to be always available.

• Familiar Programmability: Apps running in Azure can access data via file system I/O APIs.

Azure Queues

Used for storing large number of messages. Can store as many messages as your account has room for. Each message can be up to 64KB in size. Queues are commonly used to create a backlog of work. This can be combined with Azure Functions to take an action when a message is received, for example, perform a specific action when a customer uploads a form.

Azure Disks

Block-level storage volumes managed by Azure for use with Azure VMs. Conceptually, they are teh same as a physical disk.

Azure Tables

Store large amounts of structured data. Accept authenticated calls from inside and outside teh Azure cloud. Ideal for structured, non-relational data.