Azure Documentation

Azure Storage Account Lifecycle Management

Azure lifecycle management for storage accounts allows you to manage the data throughout its entire lifecycle. You can transition data to the most appropriate, and cost-effective, access tier for its usage patterns. For example, you can use the lifecycle management policy to:

• Transition blobs from cool to archive storage to save costs.
• Delete blobs when they become old.
• Transition blobs from hot to cool storage for infrequent access.
• Delete previous versions of blobs or previous Point-in-Time restore.

This feature is supported for Azure Blob Storage and Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 accounts.

Key Concepts

• Rules: Define conditions and actions for managing blob data.
• Conditions: Specify criteria for applying a rule, such as the age of blobs, creation date, or last modified date.
• Actions: Define what happens to blobs that meet the conditions, such as transitioning to a cooler tier or deleting the blob.
• Tiers: Hot, Cool, and Archive tiers offer different cost and availability characteristics.

Creating a Lifecycle Management Policy

You can create lifecycle management policies using the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell.

Using the Azure Portal

1. Navigate to your storage account in the Azure portal.
2. In the left-hand menu, under Data management, select Lifecycle management.
3. Click Add a rule to create a new rule.
4. Configure the rule's scope (e.g., apply to all containers or specific ones).
5. Define the conditions for the rule (e.g., age, date).
6. Select the action(s) to perform (e.g., transition to cool, delete).
7. Review and save the rule.

Azure CLI Example

To create a policy that transitions blobs older than 30 days to the cool tier and deletes blobs older than 365 days:

az storage lifecycle-management policy create --account-name <your-storage-account-name> --resource-group <your-resource-group> --rules '[
  {
    "name": "transition-to-cool",
    "type": "Lifecycle",
    "definition": {
      "actions": {
        "baseBlob": {
          "tierToCool": {
            "daysAfterModificationGreaterThan": 30
          }
        }
      },
      "filters": {
        "blobTypes": ["blockBlob"]
      }
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "delete-old-blobs",
    "type": "Lifecycle",
    "definition": {
      "actions": {
        "baseBlob": {
          "delete": {
            "daysAfterModificationGreaterThan": 365
          }
        }
      },
      "filters": {
        "blobTypes": ["blockBlob"]
      }
    }
  }
]'
        

Best Practices

• Start simple: Begin with a few basic rules and expand as needed.
• Monitor and analyze: Regularly review your lifecycle policies and their effectiveness.
• Understand costs: Be aware of the cost implications of each tier and transition.
• Version your data: Utilize blob versioning and Point-in-Time restore for better data protection.

Further Reading

• Azure Lifecycle Management Concepts
• Lifecycle Management Policy Examples