Microsoft Azure Storage is a managed cloud storage service which is secure, scalable, durable, redundant, and highly available.
Within Azure, there are two types of storage accounts, five types of storage, four levels of data redundancy, and three tiers for storing files.
This article will primarily be focusing on the blob storage option of Azure storage, and its primary goal is to dig deep into the blobs of Azure.
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Azure Storage REST API
The REST APIs provide programmatic access to all storage types of blobs, queues, tables, and file services to the development environments. Azure storage services are accessible using REST APIs either by using services running on Azure or directly via the internet from any application that can send and receive HTTP and HTTPS requests.
Azure Blob Storage
Azure Blob Storage by definition is a storage service used to store Binary Large Objects(BLOBs) where the data can be exposed to the public or stored privately. In simpler terms: “Blob Storage is massively scalable object storage for unstructured data.”
Blob Service Hierarchy
The blob service is composed of the following components:
- Storage Account: This storage account can be either a General Storage account (V1 or V2) or a Blob Storage Account.
- Container: A container contains a group of blobs in which there can exist an unlimited amount of blobs. A mandatory requirement of a container is that its name should always be lowercase.
- Blob: A blob is a file of any size and type.
Blob Categories
Blobs can be further sub-categorized into three types:
Block Blobs
These blobs are ideal for storing documents and text or binary media files. 50,000 blocks of up to 100 MB each can be stored in a single block blob which totals a size of a tad more than 4750 GB or 4.75 TB. (50000*100MB).
Append blobs
Append blobs are similar to Block blobs, but more optimized for appending operations which makes append blobs more suitable to store logging scenarios. What differentiates append blobs from block blobs is storage capacity. This blob can only store up to 4MB of data, unlike 100MB in block blobs. Therefore, append blocks are limited to a storage capacity of a little over 195 GB. (50000*4 MB).
Page Blobs
Page blobs can store about 8 TB of data which makes these extremely efficient for scenarios that require high reading and writing operations. This blob storage option is useful for all Azure virtual machines storage disks including the operating system disk. Within Azure, there are two-page blob categories like Standard, used for virtual machines with an average amount of read/write operations, and Premium, used for virtual machines for intensive read/write operations.
Blob Storage Accounts
Blob storage accounts offer an access tier which is specified at the time of storage creation and can be modified afterward as required. Unlike the storage option found on Azure virtual machines, i.e., hard disks of Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS), the blob storage option is not persistent. Due to this reason, any files that need to be stored long-term should be stored in persistent stores known as tiers. There are three types of access tiers:
1. Hot Access Tier
Out of the three access tiers, the hot tier has the lowest access cost, but the highest storage cost. The hot access tier would be most suited for scenarios where data is frequently accessed for reading and writing.
2. Cool Access Tier
The cool tier is used when the data is not often accessed which enables this tier to store data at a much lower storage cost. Cool storage is ideal for storing short-term backup data and data that should be accessible immediately when required but is not needed regularly.
3. Archive Access Tier
The archive access tier is particularly interesting because the data is offline and cannot be accessed immediately. Data stored in this tier would have several hours of retrieval latency which has higher data retrieval costs and the lowest storage costs compared with the other two tiers. Therefore, this tier is most suitable for storing long-term backups and data which needs to be preserved in its original raw state even though this data can be processed to its final form. The best example is CCTV footage. To read data that is stored in archive access tier, this tier should be changed to either cool or hot.
How Blob Tiers Can Replace Tape
Any advocate would rule out that cloud storage cannot compete with tape’s low pricing tiers. However, a well-experienced eDiscovery lawyer will guarantee that tape storage is not ideal, and is extremely expensive in litigation scenarios.
The process of archiving unstructured data is revolutionizing long-term data management with its intelligent secondary storage environment.
Using Azure blobs to store business data delivers huge advantages:
Convenience
As cloud storage uses native disks that support synchronized data storage redundancy, it will also ensure coding for durability. Additionally, granular blob levels also support data management, user access, and GDPR.
Efficiency
Placing the data in blob archives preserves the ability to search and obtain the stored data without the need of accessing it manually.
Data protection
When data is stored on tape, it is more secure. But it will result in worries about physical media management and warehousing. By using blob storage, data becomes redundant and self-healing due to the options for shadow copying and geo-redundancies.
No infrastructure management
There is no need to struggle with hardware maintenance or upgrades, and the IT team doesn’t have to refresh the tape hardware’s every five to ten years.
Security
Data stored in blobs are automatically encrypted and protected with AES 256-bit encryption, and AES encryption is known for its extreme security. Also, with Azure’s multi-regions, the data can be scattered to make data storage further safeguarded.
Why Use Azure Blob Storage
Azure blob storage is primarily used to store and later retrieve large amounts of binary objects known simply as files. Blob storage can be used in many ways. Blob storage is very convenient if you are planning to use Azure’s Cloud services, also known as Platform as a Service (PAAS) as blob storage provides persistent data storage. With these cloud services, Azure offers a dedicated virtual machine to run your code without the headache of managing virtual machines.
Strong Consistency
Blob storage ensures the user has superior data integrity. The data accessed is always the latest version as it instantly updates changes made to an object.
Object Mutability
The ability to edit a specific data object will improve overall performance while reducing bandwidth consumption.
Multiple Blob Types
Having page blobs, block blobs and append blobs gives more flexibility to choose a storage option that suits your specific requirements.
Geo-Redundancy
Ensures maximum availability by geo-replication to enhance both local and global access which leads to maximum business continuity.
Worldwide access
With rest-based object storage, the data stored in blob storage can be accessed from anywhere in the world with Azure’s regional data centers. It allows access to the right people at the right time without the need to worry about physical location.
Service Level Agreement
Similar to other Azure Services, Microsoft Azure guarantees 99.9% of service availability for Azure storage accounts which ensures your business is always available from anywhere in the world whenever it is needed.
