Azure Blob Storage

Azure Blob Storage Documentation

Azure Blob Storage is Microsoft's object storage solution for the cloud. It is designed to store massive amounts of unstructured data, such as text or binary data. Blob storage is optimized for storing files that are accessed infrequently, or files that need to be accessed by a large number of clients.

Key Features:

• Scalability: Handles virtually unlimited amounts of data.
• Durability and Availability: Offers various redundancy options for data protection.
• Cost-Effectiveness: Tiered storage options for optimizing costs based on access frequency.
• Security: Robust security features including encryption at rest and in transit, access control, and network security.
• Versatility: Supports various data types including images, videos, documents, backups, and logs.

Storage Tiers:

Blob storage offers different access tiers to optimize costs:

• Hot tier: Optimized for frequently accessed data.
• Cool tier: Optimized for data accessed infrequently and stored for at least 30 days.
• Archive tier: Optimized for infrequently accessed data stored for at least 180 days with flexible latency requirements.

Use Cases:

• Serving images or documents directly to a browser.
• Storing files for distributed access.
• Streaming video and audio.
• Writing to log files.
• Storing data for backup and restore, disaster recovery, and archiving.

Getting Started:

To start using Azure Blob Storage, you need an Azure subscription. You can create a storage account within your subscription, and then create containers within that storage account to hold your blobs.

Create a Storage Account Explore Blob Storage Concepts

Further Reading:

• Azure Blob Storage Overview
• Create a container
• Upload, download, and list blobs
• Azure Storage Pricing