Azure Storage Overview
This document provides a high-level overview of Azure Storage, a cloud storage solution that supports modern data access scenarios. Azure Storage offers highly available, secure, scalable, and redundant capabilities. It is designed for a wide range of use cases, from serving images and documents directly to users, to storing data for backup and archive, or enabling big data analytics.
Key Features of Azure Storage
Azure Storage is a collection of services designed to store and access data in the cloud. It offers:
- Scalability: Built to handle massive amounts of data and traffic.
- Durability and Availability: Redundant storage options ensure your data is safe and accessible.
- Security: Robust security features including authentication, authorization, and encryption.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Various tiers and pricing models to suit different needs.
- Managed Service: Microsoft manages the underlying infrastructure, allowing you to focus on your applications.
Core Azure Storage Services
Azure Storage provides several core services, each designed for specific types of data and access patterns:
1. Azure Blob Storage
Blob Storage is optimized for storing massive amounts of unstructured data such as text or binary data. This includes content like images, documents, streaming media, application installer, or log files. You can use Blob Storage for:
- Serving images or documents directly to a browser.
- Storing files for distributed access.
- Streaming video and audio.
- Storing data for backup and restore, disaster recovery, and archival.
- Writing to log files.
- Storing data for analysis with an on-premises or Azure-hosted service.
Blob Storage offers different access tiers:
- Hot tier: Optimized for frequently accessed data.
- Cool tier: Optimized for data accessed infrequently.
- Archive tier: For data rarely accessed and stored for long periods.
2. Azure Files
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 allows you to "lift and shift" legacy applications that rely on file shares to Azure without requiring significant code changes. Azure Files can be mounted concurrently by cloud or on-premises Windows, macOS, and Linux deployments.
3. Azure Queue Storage
Queue Storage is used to store large numbers of messages that can be processed asynchronously. Each message in the queue is typically up to 64 KB in size, and the queue can contain millions of messages. Queue Storage is commonly used to decouple components of cloud applications.
4. Azure Table Storage
Table Storage stores large amounts of structured, non-relational data. It's a NoSQL key-attribute store that is schema-less, allowing you to adapt your data as your needs evolve. Table Storage is a cost-effective and scalable solution for storing flexible datasets.
5. Azure Disks
Azure Disks provides highly available, persistent block storage for virtual machines in Azure. They can be used as boot volumes or data volumes for Azure VMs. Disk types include Standard HDDs, Standard SSDs, Premium SSDs, and Ultra Disks, each offering different performance and cost characteristics.
Common Scenarios
Azure Storage is used in a multitude of applications:
- Websites: Storing static content, media, and user-generated files.
- Big Data Analytics: Providing a scalable data lake for services like Azure Databricks and Azure Synapse Analytics.
- Backup and Disaster Recovery: Storing backups of on-premises and cloud data.
- Mobile Applications: Storing user data and media.
- Gaming: Storing game assets and player data.
Getting Started
To get started with Azure Storage, you'll need an Azure subscription. You can then create a storage account through the Azure portal, Azure CLI, PowerShell, or client libraries. For more detailed information on each service, please refer to the specific documentation pages.
Last updated: August 15, 2023