Azure Storage Overview
Azure Storage offers a highly available, massively scalable, secure, and durable cloud storage solution for your data. It provides a range of services designed to store and access data in a variety of ways, from unstructured data like images and documents to structured data and big data analytics workloads.
Key Azure Storage Services
Blob Storage
Optimized for storing massive amounts of unstructured data, such as images, videos, audio files, documents, and application data. Ideal for serving images or documents directly to a browser, storing files for distributed access, or for backup and restore, disaster recovery, and data archiving.
Learn MoreFile Storage
Provides fully managed cloud file shares that are accessible via the industry-standard Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. This means you can "lift and shift" applications that rely on traditional file shares to Azure without significant re-architecting.
Learn MoreQueue Storage
Used for storing large numbers of relatively small messages. Queue Storage is typically used to process and store items that are reliably processed by multiple services, such as decoupling application components.
Learn MoreTable Storage
A NoSQL key-attribute store for schemaless design, allowing you to store flexible datasets. It's ideal for applications that need a highly scalable and cost-effective data store for readily available structured data.
Learn MoreDisk Storage
Offers highly performant and resilient managed disks for Azure Virtual Machines. Available in Standard HDD, Standard SSD, Premium SSD, and Ultra Disk options to meet various performance and cost requirements.
Learn MoreData Lake Storage
A highly scalable and secure data lake solution for big analytics workloads. It is built on Azure Blob Storage and is optimized for big data analytics, including HDInsight, Azure Databricks, and Azure Synapse Analytics.
Learn MoreStorage Tiers
Azure Storage offers different tiers to optimize costs based on data access frequency:
- Hot Tier: Optimized for frequently accessed data.
- Cool Tier: Optimized for infrequently accessed data, stored for at least 30 days.
- Archive Tier: Optimized for rarely accessed data, stored for at least 180 days, with retrieval times that can take hours.
Security Features
Azure Storage provides robust security features, including:
- Authentication: Shared Key, Shared Access Signatures (SAS), and Azure Active Directory (Azure AD).
- Authorization: Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Access Control Lists (ACLs).
- Encryption: Data is encrypted at rest by default, and transport is secured with HTTPS.
- Network Security: Firewalls, virtual networks, and private endpoints.