Azure Blob Storage
Azure Blob Storage is Microsoft Azure’s object storage service that offers highly scalable and secure storage for unstructured data. Here are the key features and details of Azure Blob Storage:
- Blob tiers: Azure Blob Storage provides different storage tiers to accommodate varying access patterns and cost requirements. These tiers include Hot, Cool, and Archive, and they offer different levels of availability, latency, and cost.
- Data replication: Azure Blob Storage ensures data durability and availability through replication options. Users can choose between locally redundant storage (LRS), zone-redundant storage (ZRS), geo-redundant storage (GRS), and read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) to meet their data protection needs.
Let’s see how we can configure and add Azure Blob storage in the Azure cloud platform:
- Sign in to the Azure portal:
Log in to your Azure account using your credentials at https://portal.azure.com/. - Create a resource group (optional):
- If you want to organize your resources, you can create a new resource group. This step is optional, but it helps manage resources effectively. Go to Resource groups in the left-hand menu, click on Add, and provide a unique name and region for the resource group.
- Create a storage account:
Now, let’s create the Azure storage account to host your Blob Storage. In the Azure portal, do the following:
I. Click on Create a resource in the left-hand menu.
II. Search for Storage account in the search bar and select Storage account – blob, file, table, queue.
III. Click on the Create button. - Configure storage account settings:
You will be prompted to configure various settings for your storage account:
I. Basics:
• Subscription: Choose the appropriate subscription (if you have multiple)
• Resource group: Select the resource group you created or use an existing one
• Storage account name: Provide a globally unique name for your storage account
• Region: Choose the region where you want your storage account to be located
• Performance: Select the desired performance level (Standard or Premium)
• Account kind: Choose StorageV2 for general-purpose storage, which includes Blob Storage
II. Replication:
• Choose the replication strategy for your storage account. This determines how data is replicated across different data centers. Options include LRS, GRS, and ZRS.
III. Networking:
• Configure network settings for your storage account. By default, public access is disallowed, and you can allow access from specific networks or virtual networks if needed.
IV. Data protection:
• Configure advanced data protection options such as soft delete, Azure Backup, and more.
V. Once you’ve configured all the settings, click on the Review + create button. - Review and create:
Review the settings you’ve configured for your storage account, and if everything looks good, click on the Create button to create the storage account. - Access your storage account:
Once the storage account has been created, you can access it by navigating to Storage accounts in the Azure portal and clicking on the name of your newly created storage account. - Create a blob container:
Inside the storage account, you need to create a container to store your blobs. A container is a way to organize and group related blobs. To create a container, do the following:
I. In your storage account overview, click on Containers in the left-hand menu.
II. Click on the + Container button.
III. Provide a unique name for your container, choose the access level (private, public read access, or public read and write access), and click on the Create button. - Upload blobs to the container:
With the container created, you can now start uploading blobs (files) to it. There are various ways to upload blobs, including using the Azure portal, Azure Storage Explorer, the Azure CLI, or SDKs.
That’s it! You’ve set up Azure Blob Storage and created a container to store your blobs. You can start using the storage account to store and manage your objects (blobs).