Priyam VaidyaEach organization will have specific requirements for its cloud-hosted data. It can either store data within a particular region or need separate billing for different data categories. Azure storage accounts help to solemnize these types of policies and apply them to the Azure data. Azure offers enormous ways to store data. There are several database options like Azure SQL Database, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Table Storage. Azure provides various ways to store and send messages, such as Azure Queues and Event Hubs. Even loose files can be stored using services like Azure Files and Azure Blob.
What is Azure Storage Account?
A storage account is a container that bands a set of Azure Storage services together. Only data services from Azure Storage can be comprised of a storage account. Integrating data services into a storage account allows the user to manage them as a group. The settings specified while creating the account, or setting that is changed after creation, are applicable everywhere. Once the storage account gets deleted, all the data stored inside gets removed.
The designs and manufacturing processes of the industry get preserved as trade secrets. The spreadsheets, documents, and instructional videos that record this information are significant to the business and necessitate redundant storage. This data gets primarily retrieved from the main factory, so the user would prefer to store it in a nearby data centre. The expenditure for this storage should be billed to the manufacturing department. The industry also owns a sales group that creates demonstration and advertisement videos to promote consumer products. Priority for this data is a low cost, rather than redundancy or location. This storage should be billed to the sales team. Such business handles require multiple Azure storage accounts, and each storage account will incorporate the appropriate settings for the data it holds.
Types of Azure Storage Accounts
Azure Storage provides different types of storage accounts. Each type supports unique features and has its pricing model. Consider these differences before creating a storage account to work out the best account for the applications. The types of storage accounts are:
- General-purpose v1 accounts Legacy account type for blobs, files, queues, and tables. Use general-purpose v2 accounts instead when possible.
- General-purpose v2 accounts Basic storage account type for blobs, files, queues, and tables. Recommended for most scenarios using Azure Storage.
- Block Blob Storage accounts: Storage accounts with premium performance characteristics for block blobs and appends blobs. It is recommended for scenarios with high transaction rates or scenarios that use smaller objects or require consistently low storage latency.
- File Storage accounts: Files-only storage accounts with premium performance characteristics. Recommended for enterprise or high-performance scale applications.
- Blob Storage accounts Legacy Blob-only storage accounts. Use general-purpose v2 accounts instead when possible.
Core Storage Services
Core storage services provide an enormously scalable object store for data objects, disk storage for Azure virtual machines (VMs), a file system service for the cloud, a messaging store for reliable messaging, and a NoSQL store.
The Azure Storage platform comprises the following data services:
- Azure Blobs are an immensely scalable object store for text and binary data.
- Azure Files are organized file shares for cloud or on-premises deployments.
- Azure Queue is a messaging store for consistent messaging between application components.
Azure Blob Storage
Azure Blob Storage is an object storage solution designed for the cloud. Blob storage gets augmented for storing a massive amount of unstructured data. Unstructured data is data that does not stick to a specific data model or definition, like text or binary data. Blob storage objects can be accessed by the user or client application via HTTP/HTTPS from any part of the world. Azure Storage Rest API, Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, or an Azure Storage client library is used to access Blob Storage objects. The Blob Storage consists of a storage account with a container residing in it. Containers hold the respective blobs in them. Azure Storage supports three types of blobs; they are:
Block Blobs
Block blobs are designed to store text and binary data. Block blobs are built with blocks of data that can be managed independently. It has a storage capacity of about 4.75 TB of data. Larger block blobs are currently in preview and have storage of up to 190.7TB
Append Blobs
Append Blobs are created with blocks like block blobs but are enhanced for append operations. Append blobs are preferred for scenarios like logging data from virtual machines.
Page Blobs
Page Blobs store random access files ranging up to 8 TB in size: these blobs stock virtual hard drive (VHD) files and function as disks for Azure virtual machines.
Azure Blob
Azure Blob Storage was designed to serve specific needs. If the business use case needs to store unstructured data like audio, video, images, etc., then you should probably go with this option. The objects which are being stored in Blob do not necessarily have an extension.
The following points describe the use case scenarios:
- Serving images or documents directly to a browser
- Storing Files for distributed access
- streaming audio and video
- Writing to log Files
- Storing data for backup, restore, disaster recovery and archiving
- Storing data for backup, restore, disaster recovery and archiving
Azure Blob Pricing
Azure storage offers various access tiers, which allows for storing the blob object data in a very cost-effective manner. The available access tiers include:
- Hot– Augmented for storing frequently accessed data.
- Cool– Optimized for storing less frequently accessed data, and the storage period lasts for at least 30 days.
- Archive– Enhanced for storing rarely accessed data and the storage period lasts for at least 180 days with flexible latency requirements
Hot Access Tiers
The storage access cost for the hot access tier is comparatively higher than the storage costs of the cool and archive tiers. But access the cost of hot access tiers is low. Real-time usage for the hot access tier includes. Data that is in active use or predicted to be accessed often, in detail, the data that is read from and written too often. Data that is staged for processing and in eventual migration to the cool access tier come under hot access tiers.
Cool Access Tiers
In comparison to hot access tiers, the cool access tier has lower storage costs and higher access costs. This tier is envisioned for data that will stay back in the cool tier for at least 30 days. Real-time usage for the cool access tier includes Large data sets which must be stored cost-effectively when more data is being collected for future processing. For example, long-term storage of scientific data or raw telemetry data from a manufacturing firm.
Archive Access Tiers
The storage cost of archive access is low, but the data retrieval cost is high when compared to the hot and cool tiers. Data must sustain in the archive tier for at least 180 days or will be subjected to an early deletion charge. The retrieval time of data in an archive access tier might consume more time depending on the priority of the rehydration. Real-time usage for the Archive Access Tier includes Long-term backup, Secondary backup, and Archival datasets. The preservation of original raw data even after processing it into the final usable form Long-time storage of compliance and archival data, which is hardly ever accessed
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