What is Azure File Storage?
Azure Files offers fully managed cloud file shares that you can access from multiple clients, on-premises, or in the cloud. The Azure Files service supports the industry-standard Server Message Block (SMB) protocol and Network File System (NFS) protocol. This means you can lift and shift your application file shares in the cloud without requiring a rewrite. You can also replace or supplement on-premises file servers.
Key Features and Benefits
- Managed Service: Fully managed by Azure, reducing operational overhead.
- Accessible via SMB and NFS: Compatible with existing applications and workflows.
- Lift and Shift: Easily migrate on-premises file shares to the cloud.
- Hybrid Cloud Scenarios: Mount Azure file shares on-premises using Azure File Sync.
- Scalability: Offers various tiers with different performance and cost characteristics.
- Security: Supports Azure Active Directory Domain Services (Azure AD DS) and on-premises Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) authentication.
Use Cases
Azure Files is ideal for a variety of scenarios:
- Shared Configuration Files: Storing application configuration files that need to be accessed by multiple compute instances.
- Development and Debugging: Providing shared access to tools, scripts, and logs for development teams.
- Application Data: Storing application data that requires file-based access and is shared across compute instances.
- Content Storage: Storing content for websites, digital media, and other applications.
- Backup and Archiving: As a destination for backups or archival storage.
Service Tiers
Azure Files offers different service tiers to meet your performance and cost requirements:
- Standard: Cost-effective, ideal for general-purpose file sharing.
- Premium: High performance for I/O-intensive workloads, using solid-state drives (SSDs).
Getting Started
To start using Azure Files, you need to:
- Create an Azure Storage Account.
- Create a File Share within your storage account.
- Mount the file share to your client machines (Windows, Linux, macOS).
For detailed instructions, please refer to the official Azure documentation: