Azure Storage – Introduction
Azure Storage provides massively scalable cloud storage for data objects, files, queues, and tables. It is designed for high availability, durability, and performance across a variety of workloads—from large-scale analytics to serving media content.
Key Concepts
- Storage accounts – A unified namespace for all storage services.
- Blob storage – Object storage for unstructured data (text, binary).
- File shares – Fully managed SMB file shares.
- Queues – Messaging between application components.
- Tables – NoSQL key‑value storage.
- Redundancy options – LRS, ZRS, GRS, RA‑GRS for durability.
- Security – Role‑based access, SAS tokens, encryption at rest and in transit.
Getting Started
To start using Azure Storage:
- Create a Storage Account via the Azure portal, CLI, or ARM template.
- Choose the appropriate performance tier (Standard or Premium) and redundancy.
- Obtain the connection string or shared access signature (SAS) for authentication.
- Use one of the SDKs (e.g., .NET, Java, Python, JavaScript) to interact with the service.
Sample Code
Below is a minimal example in JavaScript (Node.js) that uploads a text file to a Blob container.
// Install: npm install @azure/storage-blob
const { BlobServiceClient } = require("@azure/storage-blob");
const fs = require("fs");
const connectionString = process.env.AZURE_STORAGE_CONNECTION_STRING;
async function uploadBlob() {
const blobServiceClient = BlobServiceClient.fromConnectionString(connectionString);
const containerName = "sample-container";
const containerClient = blobServiceClient.getContainerClient(containerName);
await containerClient.createIfNotExists();
const blobName = "hello.txt";
const blockBlobClient = containerClient.getBlockBlobClient(blobName);
const data = "Hello, Azure Storage!";
await blockBlobClient.upload(data, Buffer.byteLength(data));
console.log(`Uploaded blob ${blobName} to container ${containerName}`);
}
uploadBlob().catch(console.error);
Best Practices
- Use Managed Identities for secure authentication when running in Azure.
- Prefer Cold tier for infrequently accessed data to reduce costs.
- Implement retry policies for transient failures.
- Leverage Lifecycle Management to automatically transition blobs between tiers.