Stage 5 · Platform

Storage & Secrets

Azure Storage

Blob, File, Queue, Table — choosing the right storage tier and access patterns.

7 min readAzure Cloud EngineeringPlatform

Azure Storage Services

Azure Storage provides durable, highly available, massively scalable cloud storage. The four core services are Blob (object storage), File (SMB/NFS shares), Queue (message queuing), and Table (NoSQL key-value).

Service	Type	Use Case	Protocol
Blob Storage	Object storage	Images, documents, backups, data lake	REST API
Azure Files	File shares	Lift-and-shift, shared config	SMB 3.0, NFS 4.1
Queue Storage	Message queue	Async processing, decoupling	REST API
Table Storage	NoSQL	Structured data, IoT telemetry	REST API / OData

Blob Storage

Blob Storage is Azure's object storage service. It stores unstructured data — files of any type and size. Blobs are organized into containers (similar to S3 buckets), and each blob has a URL for direct access.

Create a storage account and container


# Create a storage account
az storage account create \
  --name stpaymentsprod \
  --resource-group rg-payments \
  --location eastus \
  --sku Standard_LRS \
  --kind StorageV2 \
  --access-tier Hot

# Create a blob container
az storage container create \
  --account-name stpaymentsprod \
  --name uploads \
  --public-access off

# Upload a blob
az storage blob upload \
  --account-name stpaymentsprod \
  --container-name uploads \
  --name backups/db-backup-2025-01-15.tar.gz \
  --file ./db-backup-2025-01-15.tar.gz

Storage account names must be globally unique, 3-24 characters, lowercase letters and numbers only.

Access Tiers

Blob Storage offers three access tiers optimized for different usage patterns. Hot for frequently accessed data, Cool for infrequently accessed data, and Archive for data accessed less than once a year.

Tier	Storage Cost	Access Cost	Minimum Retention
Hot	Highest	Lowest	None
Cool	Medium	Medium	30 days
Cold	Low	Higher	90 days
Archive	Lowest	Highest	180 days

Change blob access tier


# Move a blob to Cool tier
az storage blob set-tier \
  --account-name stpaymentsprod \
  --container-name uploads \
  --name backups/db-backup-2025-01-15.tar.gz \
  --tier Cool

# Move to Archive tier
az storage blob set-tier \
  --account-name stpaymentsprod \
  --container-name uploads \
  --name backups/db-backup-2024-01-15.tar.gz \
  --tier Archive

Archive blobs are not directly accessible — you must rehydrate them first (which takes up to 15 hours). Plan your tiering strategy based on actual access patterns.

Use lifecycle management for automatic tiering

Azure Storage Lifecycle Management policies can automatically move blobs between tiers based on age. For example, move to Cool after 30 days, Archive after 365 days.

Storage Accounts

A storage account is a container for all your storage resources. It defines the billing boundary, redundancy model, and access tier. Each storage account has a unique namespace.

Configure storage redundancy


# Create with ZRS (Zone-Redundant Storage)
az storage account create \
  --name stpaymentszrs \
  --resource-group rg-payments \
  --sku Standard_ZRS \
  --kind StorageV2

# Create with GRS (Geo-Redundant Storage)
az storage account create \
  --name stpaymentsgrs \
  --resource-group rg-payments \
  --sku Standard_GRS \
  --kind StorageV2

# Check redundancy status
az storage account show \
  --name stpaymentsprod \
  --query "{sku:sku.name, kind:kind, accessTier:accessTier}" \
  --output json

ZRS provides 99.99% availability across zones. GRS replicates to a paired region but only provides 99.9% availability. Choose based on your availability requirements.

Azure Files

Azure Files provides fully managed SMB and NFS file shares. It is commonly used for lift-and-shift scenarios, shared application configuration, and persistent storage for containers.

Create an Azure File Share


# Create a file share
az storage share-rm create \
  --storage-account stpaymentsprod \
  --name config-files \
  --quota 100

# Mount from a Linux VM
sudo mount -t cifs //stpaymentsprod.file.core.windows.net/config-files /mnt/config \
  -o vers=3.0,username=stpaymentsprod,password=$STORAGE_KEY,dir_mode=0777,file_mode=0777

For AKS, use the Azure Files CSI driver to mount file shares as persistent volumes in pods.

Queue and Table Storage

Queue Storage provides reliable message queuing for asynchronous communication. Table Storage is a NoSQL key-value store for rapid development with structured data.

Queue and Table operations


# Create a queue
az storage queue create \
  --account-name stpaymentsprod \
  --name order-processing

# Create a table
az storage table create \
  --account-name stpaymentsprod \
  --name AuditLog

# Send a message to the queue
az storage message put \
  --account-name stpaymentsprod \
  --queue-name order-processing \
  --content "Order #12345 processed"

For high-throughput messaging, consider Azure Service Bus instead of Queue Storage. Service Bus provides topics, sessions, and dead-letter queues.

Storage is billed per transaction

Azure Storage costs are a combination of capacity (GB/month), transactions (per 10,000), and data retrieval. Optimize for your access pattern — Cool storage has lower capacity cost but higher transaction cost.

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