In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, IT departments need to stay ahead of the curve by constantly prototyping, testing, and training personnel on new tools and storage configurations. Having a sandbox environment where teams can freely experiment with different storage setups without the concern of backup, data durability, or high availability is essential. This is especially true for training environments where the primary goal is to learn, and any data used or created in the process is not critical for long-term retention.

When prototyping or conducting training, the need for a simple, cost-effective storage configuration becomes apparent. Not only does this help streamline IT operations, but it also ensures that departments can experiment with various storage scenarios without the overhead of implementing more complex solutions.

Here’s why a basic storage setup is crucial for your IT department:

1. Flexibility in Testing and Training: A dedicated storage space allows IT personnel to simulate real-world storage scenarios and train new team members. This can involve the creation of storage accounts, testing redundancy settings, or configuring security features.

2. Cost-Effectiveness: Since the data in these environments isn't critical, a low-cost storage configuration without high availability or durability is a smart choice. This allows teams to focus on learning and testing, not worrying about backing up non-essential data.

3. Customizable and Easy to Configure: With platforms like Microsoft Azure, creating and configuring a storage account for testing and training purposes is simple. You can adjust key settings like security, networking, and redundancy with just a few clicks, giving your team the flexibility they need for different scenarios.

4. Hands-On Learning: Configuring your own storage setup allows IT personnel to gain hands-on experience with cloud technologies, preparing them for more complex configurations in live production environments.

Let Me Show You How
Now that we understand the necessity of temporary storage setups for IT training and testing, let me walk you through the process of creating and configuring a simple, flexible, and cost-effective storage account on Microsoft Azure:

Skilling tasks

• Create a storage account.
• Configure basic settings for security and networking. Exercise instructions a. Create a resource group and a storage account. Create and deploy a resource group to hold all your project resources. Learn more about resource groups. In the Azure portal, search for and select Resource groups.
• Select + Create. Give your resource group a name. For example, storagerg. Select a region. Use this region throughout the project. Select Review and create to validate the resource group.

Select Create to deploy the resource group.

b. Create and deploy a storage account to support testing and training. Learn more about the types of storage accounts.
In the Azure portal, search for and select Storage accounts.

Select + Create.

On the Basics tab, select your Resource group.

Provide a Storage account name. The storage account name must be unique in Azure.
Set the Performance to Standard.
Select Review, and then Create.

Wait for the storage account to deploy and then Go to resource.

1. Configure simple settings in the storage account. The data in this storage account doesn’t require high availability or durability. A lowest cost storage solution is desired. Learn more about storage account redundancy. In your storage account, in the Data management section, select the Redundancy blade.

Select Locally-redundant storage (LRS) in the Redundancy drop-down.
Be sure to Save your changes.

Refresh the page and notice the content only exists in the primary location.
The storage account should only accept requests from secure connections. Learn more about requiring secure transfer from secure connections
In the Settings section, select the Configuration blade.

Ensure Secure transfer required is Enabled.

Developers would like the storage account to use at least TLS version 1.2. Learn more about transport layer security (TLS).
In the Settings section, select the Configuration blade.
Ensure the Minimal TLS version is set to Version 1.2.

Until the storage is needed again, disable requests to the storage account. Learn more about disabling shared keys.

In the Settings section, select the Configuration blade.
Ensure Allow storage account key access is Disabled.
Be sure to Save your changes.

Ensure the storage account allows public access from all networks.
In the Security + networking section, select the Networking blade.

Ensure Public network access is set to Enabled from all networks.

Be sure to Save your changes.