AZ-104: Implement and Manage Storage in Azure

One of the core responsibilities of an Azure Administrator, as tested in the AZ-104 certification, is the ability to effectively implement and manage storage. Azure offers a variety of storage options, from unstructured data in blob storage to file-based storage, queues, and tables. This article will provide a detailed overview of Azure storage services, best practices, and tips to prepare you for the exam.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction to Azure Storage
2. Creating and Configuring Storage Accounts
3. Azure Blob Storage
4. Azure File Storage
5. Azure Table Storage
6. Azure Queue Storage
7. Managing Access and Security in Azure Storage
8. Storage Replication and Redundancy
9. Azure Storage Monitoring and Diagnostics
10. Azure Storage Pricing and Performance Tiers
11. Best Practices and Exam Tips

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1. Introduction to Azure Storage

Azure Storage is a scalable and secure service that provides cloud-based storage solutions for a variety of data types. It is designed to handle large amounts of unstructured and structured data and integrates easily with other Azure services. Storage services include:

• Blob Storage: For unstructured data like images, videos, backups, and logs.
• File Storage: A managed file share in the cloud, accessible via SMB or NFS protocols.
• Table Storage: A NoSQL store for structured, non-relational data.
• Queue Storage: For messaging and ensuring reliable communication between distributed application components.

Key Benefits:

• Scalability: Automatically scales to meet your data storage needs.
• Security: Offers encryption at rest and in transit, along with advanced access controls.
• Redundancy: Data replication across regions ensures availability and disaster recovery.

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2. Creating and Configuring Storage Accounts

To use Azure storage services, you need to create a Storage Account. This serves as a container for all your storage services, including blobs, files, tables, and queues.

Steps to Create a Storage Account:

1. Azure Portal: Navigate to Storage Accounts and click Create.
2. Choose Subscription and Resource Group: Select your subscription and resource group.
3. Storage Account Name: Provide a globally unique name (this will form part of the URL).
4. Region: Choose the region where your data will reside.
5. Performance Tier: Choose between Standard (backed by HDD) and Premium (backed by SSD).
6. Replication: Choose the replication type based on redundancy requirements (see below).

Configuration Options:

• Access Tier: Select Hot (frequent access) or Cool (infrequent access) depending on your data usage.
• Data Protection: Enable soft delete for blob data, point-in-time restore, and versioning for increased resilience.

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3. Azure Blob Storage

Blob Storage is used for storing unstructured data like documents, media files, or backups. It is highly scalable and can handle petabytes of data.

Types of Blobs:

1. Block Blobs: Ideal for large text or binary files, like images, videos, and backups.
2. Append Blobs: Optimized for appending operations, such as logs.
3. Page Blobs: Used for virtual hard drives (VHDs) and disk storage.

Key Features:

• Blob Tiers:
  • Hot Tier: Optimized for data that is accessed frequently.
  • Cool Tier: For infrequently accessed data with lower storage costs.
  • Archive Tier: For rarely accessed data, offering the lowest storage costs but higher retrieval latency.
• Blob Snapshots: Create read-only versions of blobs to preserve data at a specific point in time.
• Lifecycle Management: Automate data movement between access tiers (Hot, Cool, Archive) based on rules.

Example Scenario:

• A media company uses Blob Storage to store video content in the Hot Tier for streaming. Older content is moved to the Cool Tier or Archive Tier to reduce costs.

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4. Azure File Storage

Azure Files provides fully managed file shares in the cloud that can be accessed via SMB (Server Message Block) or NFS protocols. This is ideal for applications that require shared file access.

Key Features:

• SMB and NFS Support: Supports Windows and Linux file shares.
• File Sync: Synchronize files between on-premises and cloud using Azure File Sync.
• Backups: Integrated with Azure Backup for file share backups.
• Access Control: Supports Azure AD DS for identity-based access controls.

Example Scenario:

• A company uses Azure File Storage to host shared documents and collaborate across teams. Using Azure File Sync, they synchronize on-premises file servers with the cloud.

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5. Azure Table Storage

Azure Table Storage is a NoSQL datastore designed for structured data. It is highly scalable and ideal for storing large volumes of data with a flexible schema.

Key Features:

• Partition Key and Row Key: Data is organized into tables and identified by a combination of a Partition Key and a Row Key.
• Scalability: Designed to handle large datasets and horizontal scaling.
• Cost-Effective: It’s a low-cost option for applications that require structured, but non-relational data storage.

Example Scenario:

• An IoT solution logs sensor data into Table Storage, allowing rapid writes of telemetry data and queries using partition keys for performance optimization.

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6. Azure Queue Storage

Azure Queue Storage is a simple messaging service that allows for reliable communication between application components. It is commonly used in distributed systems to decouple services.

Key Features:

• Message Size: Stores messages up to 64 KB in size, with unlimited messages in the queue.
• Visibility Timeout: Messages can be set to become invisible after being read, for a specified period, ensuring that only one receiver processes the message at a time.
• Poison Queue: Messages that fail multiple processing attempts can be moved to a poison queue for later review.

Example Scenario:

• An e-commerce application uses Queue Storage to queue orders for processing, ensuring that each order is processed asynchronously by a worker role.

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7. Managing Access and Security in Azure Storage

Security is a crucial aspect of managing Azure storage. Azure offers several mechanisms to control access to your data.

Key Security Features:

• Shared Access Signatures (SAS): Provides limited access to your storage resources for a specified time frame without sharing your account key.
• Storage Account Keys: Each storage account has two access keys. These keys grant full access to the storage account.
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Use Azure Active Directory (AAD) to assign roles and restrict access at the storage account or resource level.
• Encryption: Data is encrypted at rest using Storage Service Encryption (SSE) and during transit using HTTPS.

Example:

• A development team shares blobs securely with external vendors using SAS tokens, which grant time-limited access to specific containers without exposing storage keys.

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8. Storage Replication and Redundancy

Azure provides different levels of data replication to ensure high availability and durability of your data.

Replication Options:

1. Locally Redundant Storage (LRS): Replicates data three times within a single data center. Offers minimal redundancy and is the least expensive.
2. Zone-Redundant Storage (ZRS): Replicates data across multiple availability zones in the same region. Ensures data availability even if one zone fails.
3. Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS): Replicates data to a secondary region, providing additional redundancy across geographic regions.
4. Read-Access Geo-Redundant Storage (RA-GRS): Same as GRS but provides read access to the secondary region.

Example Scenario:

• A financial institution chooses RA-GRS for their data to ensure it is not only replicated to another region but can also be read from the secondary location in case of a primary region outage.

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9. Azure Storage Monitoring and Diagnostics

Azure provides monitoring tools to track storage account performance and diagnose issues.

Tools:

• Azure Monitor: Provides insights into storage performance, capacity, and request latencies.
• Storage Metrics: Collects data on the transactions and health of the storage services.
• Azure Log Analytics: Analyzes logs to troubleshoot issues with your storage services.
• Alerts: Set up custom alerts for performance or capacity issues.

Example:

• A system administrator uses Azure Monitor to track the read and write latencies of a storage account and sets up alerts when latencies exceed a defined threshold.

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10. Azure Storage Pricing and Performance Tiers

Azure storage pricing is based on several factors such as performance tiers, access tiers, and replication choices.

Pricing Factors:

• Performance Tier:
  • Standard Tier: Cost-effective storage backed by HDDs. Suitable for infrequent access scenarios.
  • Premium Tier: High-performance storage backed by SSDs. Ideal for low-latency applications.
• Access Tier:
  • Hot: For frequently accessed data.
  • Cool: For infrequently accessed data.
  • Archive: For long-term storage with rare access.
• Replication: The higher