What is Azure Storage Files?
Azure Storage provides a comprehensive cloud storage solution that is highly available, secure, and scalable. When we talk about "files" in the context of Azure Storage, we are primarily referring to two distinct services designed for different use cases:
- Azure Blob Storage: Optimized for storing massive amounts of unstructured data, such as text or binary data. Think images, videos, log files, documents, and application installations.
- Azure Files: Offers fully managed cloud file shares that are accessible via the industry-standard Server Message Block (SMB) protocol and Network File System (NFS) protocol. This makes it ideal for lift-and-shift enterprise applications that rely on shared storage.
Key Concepts
Unstructured Data
Unstructured data refers to data that does not have a predefined data model or is not organized in a pre-defined manner. This includes files, images, videos, audio, and social media posts. Azure Blob Storage is the primary service for managing large volumes of unstructured data in the cloud.
Structured vs. Unstructured Data
Structured data is highly organized and typically resides in relational databases (e.g., customer records, sales transactions). Unstructured data, on the other hand, is more free-form. Azure Storage excels at handling the latter.
Blob Storage Tiers
Azure Blob Storage offers different access tiers to optimize costs based on how frequently data is accessed:
- Hot tier: For data that is accessed frequently.
- Cool tier: For data that is accessed infrequently and stored for at least 30 days.
- Archive tier: For data that is rarely accessed and stored for at least 180 days, with flexible latency requirements.
Azure Files Capabilities
Azure Files provides:
- Managed File Shares: Fully managed cloud file shares.
- SMB & NFS Support: Access using standard file sharing protocols.
- Lift-and-Shift Applications: Easy migration of applications that require shared storage.
- Hybrid Scenarios: Integration with on-premises environments using Azure File Sync.
Use Cases
Azure Storage Files services are used for a wide range of applications, including:
- 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.
- Storing data for backup and restore.
- Storing data for cloud-native applications.
- Providing shared access to application data.
In the following sections, we will dive deeper into the specifics of Azure Blob Storage and Azure Files, exploring their features, capabilities, and how to leverage them effectively.