Azure Storage – Getting Started

Overview

Azure Storage provides a massively scalable object store for data objects, a file system for the cloud, a messaging store for reliable messaging, and a NoSQL store. This tutorial walks you through creating a storage account, uploading a blob, and accessing it from code.

Prerequisites

• Azure subscription (free trial works)
• Azure CLI installed (az)
• PowerShell 5.1+ or Bash
• Basic knowledge of cloud concepts

Create a Storage Account

Run the following commands in your terminal to create a resource group and a storage account.

az group create --name tutorial-rg --location eastus
az storage account create \
  --name tutstorage$(openssl rand -hex 3) \
  --resource-group tutorial-rg \
  --location eastus \
  --sku Standard_LRS

Upload a Blob

First, create a container and upload a sample file.

ACCOUNT=$(az storage account show -g tutorial-rg -n tutstorage* --query "name" -o tsv)
CONTAINER=mycontainer
az storage container create --account-name $ACCOUNT --name $CONTAINER

# Create a sample text file
echo "Hello Azure Storage!" > sample.txt

az storage blob upload \
  --account-name $ACCOUNT \
  --container-name $CONTAINER \
  --name hello.txt \
  --file sample.txt

Access Your Data

Retrieve the blob URL and read its contents using Azure SDK for JavaScript (Node.js).

npm install @azure/storage-blob
// index.js
const { BlobServiceClient } = require("@azure/storage-blob");

async function main() {
  const account = process.env.AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT;
  const key = process.env.AZURE_STORAGE_KEY;
  const sharedKeyCredential = new StorageSharedKeyCredential(account, key);
  const blobServiceClient = new BlobServiceClient(
    `https://${account}.blob.core.windows.net`,
    sharedKeyCredential
  );

  const containerClient = blobServiceClient.getContainerClient("mycontainer");
  const blobClient = containerClient.getBlobClient("hello.txt");
  const downloadBlockBlobResponse = await blobClient.download();
  const downloaded = await streamToString(downloadBlockBlobResponse.readableStreamBody);
  console.log("Blob content:", downloaded);
}
main().catch(console.error);

Next Steps

• Explore Blob storage features.
• Implement lifecycle management policies.
• Secure your data with Azure AD authentication.
• Scale with Azure Data Lake Storage.