A really quick introduction to Microsoft Azure Storage and all of its services. It's one of the core components of Azure and it's really important to understand it if you want to "move to the cloud".

1. MAXIME LEMAITRE – 9/7/2015
Microsoft Azure Storage
… on the road to a scalable architecture …

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• What is a Storage Account ?
• Storage Services
• Quotas & Pricing
• Working with Azure Storage
• Demo
• Conclusion
• Question

3. Standard Storage Accounts
Blob storage stores file data. A blob can be any
type of text or binary data, such as a document,
media file, or application installer.
Table storage stores structured datasets. Table
storage is a NoSQL key-attribute data store,
which allows for rapid development and fast
access to large quantities of data.
Queue storage provides reliable messaging for
workflow processing and for communication
between components of cloud services.
File storage (Preview) offers shared storage for
legacy applications using the standard SMB 2.1
protocol. Azure virtual machines and cloud
services can share file data across application
components via mounted shares, and on-premise
applications can access file data in a share via the
File service REST API.
A standard storage account gives you access to Blob storage, Table
storage, Queue storage, and File storage.

4. 4
How to create a Storage Account ?
(in less than 5 minutes)
Note : To use this new account, you just need the AccountName and Access Keys

5. 5
Storage Quotas
RESOURCE DEFAULT LIMIT
TB per storage account 500 TB
Max size of a single blob container, table, or queue 500 TB
Max number of blob containers, blobs, shares, tables, queues,
entities, or messages per storage account
Only limit is the storage account capacity
Max size of a file share 5 TB (Unlimited number of files)
Max 8 KB IOPS per persistent disk (Basic/Standard) 3001/5001
Total Request Rate (assuming 1KB object size) per storage
account
Up to 20,000 IOPS, entities per second, or
messages per second
Target Throughput for Single Blob Up to 60 MB per second, or up to 500
requests per second
Target Throughput for Single Queue (1 KB messages) Up to 2000 messages per second
Target Throughput for Single Table Partition (1 KB entities) Up to 2000 entities per second
Target Throughput for Single File Share (Preview) Up to 60 MB per second
Max ingress2 per storage account (Europe) 5 Gbps if GRS3 enabled, 10 Gbps for LRS
Max egress2 per storage account (Europe) 10 Gbps if GRS3 enabled, 15 Gbps for LRS

6. Pricing
http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/storage/
6
Additional €0.0027 per 100,000 transactions for all Standard storage types
Page
Blobs &
Disks
Block
Blobs
Tables &
Queues

7. • Build apps with first class client library support
for .NET, Java, Android, C++, and Node.js.
• Data in Azure Storage is also accessible via
REST API, which can be called by any language
that makes HTTP/HTTPS requests
7
Clients
Also available in Node.js, Java, C++,
Python, Xamarin, Ruby, …

8. • Azure Blob storage is a service for storing large amounts of unstructured data, such as text or
binary data, that can be accessed from anywhere in the world via HTTP or HTTPS. Common
uses include :
– Serving images or documents directly to a browser
– Storing files for distributed access
– Streaming video and audio
– Performing secure backup and DR
– Storing data for analysis by
an on-premises or Azure-hosted service
• Concepts
– Container : A container provides a grouping of a set of blobs. All blobs must be in a container.An
account can contain an unlimited number of containers. A container can store an unlimited number
of blobs.
– Blob : A file of any type and size. There are two types of blobs that can be stored in Azure Storage:
block and page blobs. Most files are block blobs. A single block blob can be up to 200 GB in size. This
tutorial uses block blobs. Page blobs, another blob type, can be up to 1 TB in size, and are more
efficient when ranges of bytes in a file are modified frequently. For more information about blobs,
see Understanding Block Blobs and Page Blobs.
– URL format: http://<storage account>.blob.core.windows.net/<container>/<blob
8
Blob Storage

9. • A NoSQL datastore for large amounts of structured data. Accepts authenticated calls from
inside and outside the Azure cloud. Azure tables are ideal for storing structured, non-
relational data. Common uses include :
– Storing TBs of structured data for web
– Storing datasets that don't require complex joins,
foreign keys, or stored procedures
and can be denormalized for fast access
– Quickly querying data using a clustered index
– Accessing data using the OData protocol
and LINQ queries with WCF Data Service .NET Libraries
Concepts
– Table : A table is a collection of entities. Tables don't enforce a schema on entities, which means a
single table can contain entities that have different sets of properties. The number of tables that a
storage account can contain is limited only by the storage account capacity limit.
– Entity: An entity is a set of properties, similar to a database row. An entity can be up to 1MB in size.
– Properties: A property is a name-value pair. Each entity can include up to 252 properties to store
data. Each entity also has 3 system properties that specify a partition key, a row key, and a
timestamp. Entities with the same partition key can be queried more quickly, and inserted/updated
in atomic operations. An entity's row key is its unique identifier within a partition.
– URL format: http://<storage account>.blob.core.windows.net/<table> 9
Table Storage

10. • Azure Queue storage is a service for storing large numbers of messages that can be accessed
from anywhere in the world via authenticated calls using HTTP or HTTPS. A single queue
message can be up to 64 KB in size, and a queue can contain millions of messages, up to the
total capacity limit of a storage account. Common uses include :
– Creating a backlog of work
to process asynchronously
– Passing messages from
an Azure Web role to an Azure Worker role
Concepts
– Queue: A queue contains a set of messages. All messages must be in a queue.
– Message: A message, in any format, of up to 64KB.
– URL format: http://<storage account>.blob.core.windows.net/<queue>
10
Queue Storage

11. • Offers shared storage for applications using the standard SMB 2.1 protocol. Azure virtual
machines and cloud services can share file data across application components via mounted
shares, and on-premises applications can access file data via the File storage API. Common
uses include :
– Migrating on-premises applications that rely on file shares to run on Azure virtual machines or cloud
services, without expensive rewrites
– Storing diagnostic data such as logs,
metrics, and crash dumps
in a shared location
– Storing tools and utilities needed
for developing or administering
Azure VM or cloud services
– Storing shared application settings,
for example in configuration files
Concepts
– Share: A File storage share is an SMB 2.1 file share in Azure. All directories and files must be created
in a parent share. An account can contain an unlimited number of shares, and a share can store an
unlimited number of files, up to the capacity limits of the storage account.
– Directory: An optional hierarchy of directories.
– File: A file in the share. A file may be up to 1 TB in size.
– URL format: https://<storage account>.file.core.windows.net/<share>/<directory/directories>/<file>
11
Files Storage

12. Partitions affect load balancing and scalability for each of the storage services.
• Blobs: The partition key for a blob is container name + blob name. This means that
each blob has its own partition. Blobs can therefore be distributed across many
servers in order to scale out access to them. While blobs can be logically grouped
in blob containers, there are no partitioning implications from this grouping.
• Messages: The partition key for a message is the queue name, so all messages in a
queue are grouped into a single partition and are served by a single server.
Different queues may be processed by different servers to balance the load for
however many queues a storage account may have.
• Entities: The partition key for an entity is table name + partition key, where the
partition key is the value of the required user-defined PartitionKey property for
the entity.
All entities with the same partition key value are grouped into the same partition and
are stored on the same partition server. This is an important point to understand in
designing your application. 12
Partitions in Azure Storage

13. • Provides a local environment that emulates the Azure Blob, Queue, and Table
services for development purposes (File Shares is not supported)
• Uses a local MS SQL Server instance (LocalDB) and the local file system to emulate
the Azure storage services
• a single fixed account and a well-known authentication key
• Service endpoints
13
Working with Storage emulator
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-use-emulator/

14. Usefull tools
http://storagetools.azurewebsites.net/
Visual Studio + Azure SDK Azure Storage Explorer 14

15. 15
Example #1
a better front-end process to optimize images
Images
(PNG/JPG/GIF/SVG)
Block Blob
CDN endpoint
Gulp process
(Imagemin +
upload to Azure)

16. 16
Example #2
Optimazer
Azure Blob
Storage optimized
images
Worker Role
Scan web pages
and optimize
images
Azure Table
Store pages &
images
results/stats
Azure Web Site
Web Api +
Angular
Scheduler
Automatically add
page to scan
Azure Queue
Pending scans, optimizations …

17. Demo

18. Questions

19. References
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-introduction/
• http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/services/storage/
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-introduction/
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-dotnet-how-to-use-tables/
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-dotnet-how-to-use-queues/
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-dotnet-how-to-use-files/
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-dotnet-how-to-use-blobs/

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