Azure Blob Storage Soft Delete

Protect your data from accidental deletions or overwrites with Blob Storage soft delete. This feature allows you to retain deleted blobs and snapshots for a specified period, enabling easy recovery.

What is Soft Delete?

Soft delete for Azure Blob Storage is a mechanism that protects your data by retaining deleted blobs, blob snapshots, and blob versions for a configurable retention period. Instead of permanently deleting the data immediately, it's marked for deletion and moved to a soft-deleted state. During this period, you can restore the blob to its previous state.

How it Works

When soft delete is enabled for your storage account, and a blob is deleted, it isn't immediately removed from the storage. Instead, the blob enters a soft-deleted state.

• Deleted Blob: The blob is no longer accessible via its original URI but can be restored.
• Blob Snapshot: If snapshots exist, they are also retained and can be restored along with the parent blob.
• Blob Version: If versioning is enabled, deleted versions are also retained.

After the specified retention period expires, the soft-deleted data is permanently deleted by Azure Storage.

Key Benefits

• Data Protection: Safeguards against accidental data loss due to human error or malicious attacks.
• Simplified Recovery: Allows for straightforward restoration of deleted data with a few clicks or API calls.
• Configurable Retention: You control how long soft-deleted data is kept, balancing protection with storage costs.
• Protection for Snapshots and Versions: Extends protection to other important data recovery mechanisms.

Enabling Soft Delete

Soft delete can be enabled at the storage account level. It's highly recommended to enable this feature when creating a new storage account or reviewing the configuration of existing ones.

Steps to Enable (Azure Portal):

1. Navigate to your Azure Storage Account in the Azure portal.
2. Under Data protection, select Soft delete for blobs.
3. Toggle the switch to Enabled.
4. Set the desired Retention period (in days, typically between 1 and 365).
5. Click Save.

Restoring Soft-Deleted Blobs

Restoring a soft-deleted blob is a simple process:

• Using the Azure Portal: Navigate to the container, and if soft-deleted blobs are present, you'll see an option to "Show deleted blobs". Select the blob you wish to restore and click "Undelete".
• Using Azure CLI or PowerShell: Utilize commands like `az storage blob undelete` or `Restore-AzStorageBlob` to programmatically restore blobs.

Code Example (Azure CLI)

To restore a soft-deleted blob:

Considerations

• Soft delete incurs storage costs for the duration the data is retained.
• Ensure your retention period aligns with your business and compliance requirements.
• When enabling soft delete, consider its impact on any existing lifecycle management policies.