What is Azure Storage

Azure Storage is a cloud-based storage solution provided by Microsoft Azure that allows you to store and manage a range of data types in a highly scalable, secure, and durable way. From basic file storage to extensive, distributed data storage, it provides a variety of services and storage choices for various use cases. Azure Storage is built for high availability and performance, and it can handle both organized and unstructured data.

Key services offered by Azure Storage include the following:

1. Azure Blob Storage

• Purpose: Used to store enormous volumes of unstructured data, including backups, text, photos, and videos.
• Types:
  • Block blobs: are the best option for storing huge items, such as backups, films, or pictures.
  • Append blobs: Perfect for logging, optimized for append operations.
  • Page blobs: are utilized for sporadic read/write access, including Virtual hard drive (VHD) files for virtual machines, which are used for random read/write access.
• Use Cases: Backup, disaster recovery, media storage, data lakes, and serving static website content.

2. Azure File Storage

• Purpose: offers cloud file shares that are completely managed and reachable through the SMB (Server Message Block) protocol.
• Use Cases: apps that use file sharing, general-purpose file storage, and shared storage for Linux and Windows virtual machines.

3. Azure Queue Storage

• Purpose: Used to store and manage queues of messages, allowing asynchronous communication between components of distributed applications.
• Use Cases: Task scheduling, background processing, scalable and robust system construction, and decoupling application components.

4. Storage for Azure Tables

• Purpose: You can store a lot of structured, non-relational data in this NoSQL key-value store.
• Use Cases: storing logs, application data, or metadata in situations where scalability and flexibility are required but conventional relational databases are superfluous.

5. Azure Disk Storage

• Purpose: Offers Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) block-level storage that is durable.
• Types: Managed disks (Standard HDD, Standard SSD, Premium SSD).
• Use Cases: Used to store operating system disks, data disks, or application data in Azure VMs.

6. Azure Archive Storage

• Purpose: Long-term, inexpensive storage for data that must be kept for compliance or regulatory purposes but is rarely accessed.
• Use Case: Archival data, backups, compliance data, and other cold storage scenarios

Key Features of Azure Storage:

• Scalability: Capable of handling data quantities ranging from small data size to petabytes or larger.
• Durability: High durability and availability are ensured by providing redundancy alternatives such as geo-replication (e.g., GRS).
• Security: Data encryption at rest and in transit, integration with Azure Active Directory (AAD) for access control, and role-based access control (RBAC).
• Performance: Offers different performance tiers (e.g., standard vs. premium) based on workload requirements.
• Access: Various methods of accessing data, such as Azure Portal, Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, REST APIs, and SDKs.

Applications that need long-lasting and highly available data storage, like web apps, backup systems, and big data analytics, are best suited for Azure Storage.

Here are the steps to accomplish the task of providing a storage account for IT department testing and training:

• Step 1. Create a resource group and a storage account.

i. Create and deploy a resource group to hold all your project resources.

• 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. ii. Create and deploy a storage account to support testing and training.
• 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.
  
  

• Step 2 Configure simple settings in the storage account.

i. The data in this storage account doesn’t require high availability or durability. A lowest cost storage solution is desired.

• 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.

ii. The storage account should only accept requests from secure connections.

• In the Settings section, select the Configuration blade.
• Ensure Secure transfer required is Enabled.

iii. Developers would like the storage account to use at least TLS version 1.2.

• In the Settings section, select the Configuration blade.
  • Ensure the Minimal TLS version is set to Version 1.2.

iv. Until the storage is needed again, disable requests to the storage account

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

v. 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.