Managing Azure Storage Resources

This document provides comprehensive guidance on managing your Azure Storage resources, including creating, configuring, monitoring, and optimizing your storage accounts and their services.

Storage Account Management

Azure Storage offers a robust platform for managing data in the cloud. A storage account is a unique namespace in Azure for your data. All Azure Storage services are exposed via this storage account.

Creating a Storage Account

You can create a storage account through the Azure portal, Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, or programmatically.

# Azure CLI example az storage account create --name mystorageaccountname \ --resource-group myresourcegroup \ --location westus \ --sku Standard_LRS \ --kind StorageV2

Configuring Storage Account Properties

Key properties include:

  • Replication: LRS, GRS, RA-GRS, ZRS for data redundancy.
  • Access Tier: Hot, Cool, Archive for cost optimization based on access frequency.
  • Networking: Configuring firewall rules and virtual network access.
  • Encryption: Managing encryption keys (Microsoft-managed or customer-managed).

Managing Storage Services

Within a storage account, you can manage:

Blob Storage Management

Organize blobs into containers. Learn about blob lifecycle management, access control (SAS tokens, RBAC), and snapshotting.

Blob Lifecycle Management

Define rules to transition blobs to cooler tiers or expire them based on age.

Learn More about Blob Lifecycle Management

File Storage Management

Manage SMB file shares, including mounting them on-premises or in Azure VMs. Understand share snapshots and access control.

Queue Storage Management

Work with queues for reliable messaging between application components. Learn about message visibility timeouts and dequeue counts.

Table Storage Management

Store and query large sets of structured non-relational data. Explore table design and partitioning for performance.

Monitoring and Optimization

Effectively monitor your storage account performance and costs. Azure Monitor provides metrics and logs for deep insights.

  • Metrics: Track availability, transaction counts, latency, and capacity.
  • Logs: Enable storage analytics logs for detailed operations.
  • Cost Management: Utilize Azure Cost Management to track and optimize spending.
# Azure PowerShell example for Get Storage Account Metrics Get-AzStorageAccountMetric -ResourceGroupName "myresourcegroup" -AccountName "mystorageaccountname" -MetricName "Transactions" -GeoType Primary -TimeUnit Hours -Period 24

Security Best Practices

Secure your storage accounts by implementing access control mechanisms, enabling encryption, and configuring network security features.

See full security guidelines

For deeper dives into specific services, please use the navigation on the left.