Storage options in Azure

When you have a requirement for storing files or documents in Azure there are multiple options available but how do you choose which option is the best fit for your requirements? In this blog, let me walk you through the different storage options available in Azure in more technical depth with an overview of typical usage scenarios to help you choose the most appropriate storage option to meet your needs.

1.     Azure Blob Storage

Technical specification:

• Azure Blob storage is useful for massive-scale, cloud-native applications that need to store unstructured data.
  • The service is encrypted at rest and provides fine grained access control methods, with low cost and tiered storage structure.
  • To maximize performance and scale, Azure Blob storage is a simpler storage abstraction than a true file system.
  • The service is available with different types of recovery model: locally redundant storage (LRS), zone redundant storage (ZRS), geo-redundant storage (GRS), geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS), read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) and read-access geo-zone-redundant storage (RA-GZRS).
  • Blob storage has standard and premium performance tiers and it has cost associated based on performance.
  • Soft delete enables you to recover blob data after it has been deleted.
• We can enable access to specific file, using shared access signatures (SAS) to generate tokens that have specific permissions, and which are valid for a specified time interval.
  • Enable firewall access with restricted access to Azure VNETs and private endpoints is supported, which enable storage service access it from Azure VNET.
  • Azure has a life cycle management for easy storage tiering options.

Usage Scenarios:

• Storage location for images or document or video/audio file.
• Store the diagnostics logs or backup / Archival data.
• Host a static website with low cost.

 2.     Azure Files

Technical specification:

• Azure Files is a service in Azure, which offers a fully managed file share in the cloud.
• Azure File shares can be mounted concurrently by cloud or on-premises deployments of Windows, Linux, and macOS.
• Its accessible by mounting the file share on your server or PC by using the SMB 3.0 protocol, or you can use tools like Storage Explorer to access files in your file share.
• Azure file shares can be used as caching Azure file shares on-premises using Azure File Sync.
• Azure Files does not support read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) and read-access geo-zone-redundant storage (RA-GZRS) and other types are supported locally redundant storage (LRS), zone redundant storage (ZRS), geo-redundant storage (GRS), and geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS).
• Azure file share is encrypted at rest by default and supports prevention of accidental deletion of file.
• Azure File supports IP level restriction and supports on-premise AD & Azure AD DS for identity-based authentication.
• Azure Backup offers backup of Azure Files and we can use periodic share snapshots for protection against accidental deletions.
• NFS protocol is not supported with Azure files however it can be mounted with SMB protocol to Linux distribution servers.
• Azure file share sizes have as limit of 5 TB per storage account and premium tier can scale up to 100 TiB. Individual file limit is 1 TB.

Usage Scenarios:

• A Fully managed and serverless file server with performance and encrypted.
• Quick and easy lift and shift of on-premise file servers.
• With file sync, Azure file shares can also be replicated to Windows Servers, either on-premises cloud to be an extension.

3.     File Server (IaaS)

Technical specification:

• A file server is a centralised server which enables file systems access to end users.
• The server administrator defines authorisation and permission management for end uses regarding which users have which access rights where data can only be viewed or also added, edited, or deleted.
• Centralized user management with on-premise active directory authentication.
• This will support Microsoft cluster for file server to provide high availability and Disaster recovery purpose.
• Running a file server with Azure Disks as back-end storage typically is much more expensive than using an Azure file share.
• Azure Backup can be used to backup file server as Azure virtual machine.

Usage Scenarios:

• Due to Azure file limitations, organisation might need to have a file server in Azure.
• Deploying a file server in Azure Virtual Machines is a high-performance way to get file storage in when a requirement of NFS protocol or not supported Azure file protocol.
• When there is a requirement of DFS namespace to centralise the file shares across organization.

4.     Azure disks

Technical specification:

• This is block storage volume for use with Azure computer Virtual machines.
• Azure disk has two options managed and un-managed options. The major difference is Un-managed disks need to create an Azure storage account. Managed disk will be manged by Microsoft and recommended options.
• A disk cache is a cache memory that is used to speed up the process of storing and accessing data from the hard disk.
• Disk volumes sizes can be changed on the fly.
• Disk supports different performance options based on IOPS and Throughput as: ultra-disk (SSD), Premium disk (SSD), standard disk (SSD) and Standard HDD disk.
• Managed disk supports only with Locally redundant storage and comes with server-side encryption (SSE) at rest.

Usage Scenarios:

• Azure disks are used as a virtual hard drive for virtual machines.
• It can be used an OS drive and data drive for virtual machines.

5.     Shared disk

Technical specification:

• Azure shared disks are a new feature for Azure managed disks that allows to attach a managed disk to multiple virtual machines (VMs) simultaneously
• It is supported only with Azure managed disks on premium and ultra-disks, at the moment of writing this.
• Shared managed disks offer shared block storage that can be accessed from multiple VMs, these are exposed as logical unit numbers (LUNs). LUNs are then presented to an initiator (VM) from a target (disk). These LUNs look like direct-attached-storage (DAS) or a local drive to the VM.
• This option supports other features of managed disk in Azure.

Usage Scenarios:

• Attaching a shared disk to multiple VMs allows you to either deploy new or migrate existing clustered applications to Azure.

6.     Any Third-Party Solutions: NetApp shares

Technical specification:

• It’s a Netapp services as file Storage, Powered by NetApp
• It supports creating volume with NFS and SMB Protocol or dual protocol.
• This service supports Active directory for authentication and capacity pool.
• This required a dedicated subnet for usage and needs to create a Netapp account (equivalent to storage account).

Usage Scenarios:

• Migration of current Netapp service from on-premise “lift & shift” of both Linux & Windows applications to run seamlessly in Azure.

Summary:

The selection of the storage service will be based on individual requirements. Compare the services with benefits of cost, security and decide for usage.