Providing storage for a public website using Azure cloud

In this article, we will be providing Azure cloud storage for a company website that hosts product images, videos, marketing literature, and customer success stories. Customers are located worldwide and demand is rapidly growing. The content is mission-critical and requires low latency load times. It’s important to keep track of the document versions and to quickly restore documents if they’re deleted.

Creating a storage account with high availability

1. Create a storage account to support the public website.

• In the portal, search for and select Storage accounts.

In the dropdown menu, you will also see "classic storage account." Do not use this option, as it is an outdated version.

• Select + Create.

• For resource group select new. Give your resource group a name and select OK.

• Set the Storage account name to a unique name with a numeric identifier.
• Take the defaults for other settings.
• Select Review and then Create.

• Wait for the storage account to deploy, and then select Go to resource.

2. This storage requires high availability in the event of a regional outage. Additionally, enable read access to the secondary region.

Redundancy in Azure Storage refers to maintaining multiple copies of data across different locations, ensuring that in the event of a disaster, your data remains accessible and is not lost.

• In the storage account, in the Data management section, select the Redundancy blade.
• Ensure Read-access Geo-redundant storage is selected.
• Review the primary and secondary location information.

As shown in the image above, there are different Azure Storage redundancy options:

Locally Redundant Storage (LRS): Replicates data within a single datacenter, offering lower cost and durability.

Zone-Redundant Storage (ZRS): Replicates data across multiple availability zones for higher availability.

Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS): Asynchronously replicates data to a secondary region for disaster recovery.

Geo-Zone-Redundant Storage (GZRS): Combines ZRS and geo-replication for maximum durability and availability.

3. Information on the public website should be accessible without requiring customers to login.

Blob Storage allows users to effectively store and manage large volume of unstructured data, enhancing data accessibility and analysis capabilities.

• In the storage account, in the Settings section, select the Configuration blade.
• Ensure the Allow blob anonymous access setting is enabled.
• Be sure to save your changes.

There are three types of blobs:

• Block blob, which stores text and binary data.
• Append blobs are made up of blocks like block blobs, and are ideal for scenarios such as logging data from virtual machines.
• Page blobs store large random access files. Page blobs store virtual hard drive (VHD) files and serve as disks for Azure virtual machines.

Create a blob storage container with anonymous read access

1. The public website has various images and documents. Create a blob storage container for the content.

• In your storage account, in the Data storage section, select the Containers blade. -Select + Container.

• Ensure the Name of the container is public.
• Select Create.

2. Customers should be able to view the images without being authenticated. Configure anonymous read access for the public container blobs.

• Select your public container.

• On the Overview blade, select Change access level.

• Ensure the Public access level is Blob (anonymous read access for blobs only).

Read Access helps users secure their data while allowing necessary access to specific content, thereby balancing usability and security.

• Select OK.

Practice uploading files and testing access.

1. For testing, upload a file to the public container. The type of file doesn’t matter. A small image or text file is a good choice.

• Ensure you are viewing your container.
• Select Upload.
• Browse to files and select a file. Browse to a file of your choice.
• Select Upload.

• Close the upload window, Refresh the page and ensure your file was uploaded.

2. Determine the URL for your uploaded file. Open a browser and test the URL.

• Select your uploaded file.
• On the Overview tab, copy the URL.
• Paste the URL into a new browser tab.

• If you have uploaded an image file, it will display in the browser.

Configure soft delete

1. It’s important that the website documents can be restored if they’re deleted. Configure blob soft delete for 21 days.

Soft delete protects data from accidental deletion by allowing recovery within a specified retention period. This further enhances data protection, allowing users to recover deleted containers and their contents, thus preventing data loss.

• Go to the Overview blade of the storage account.
• On the Properties page, locate the Blob service section.
• Select the Blob soft delete setting.

• Ensure the Enable soft delete for blobs is checked.
• Change the Keep deleted blobs for (in days) setting to 21.
• Notice you can also Enable soft delete for containers.
• Save your changes.

2. If a file is accidentally deleted, you need to practice using soft delete to restore the file.

• Navigate to your container where you uploaded a file.
• Select the file you uploaded and then select Delete.
• Select OK to confirm deleting the file.

• On the container Overview page, toggle the slider Show deleted blobs. This toggle is to the right of the search box.

• Select your deleted file, and use the ellipses on the far right, to Undelete the file.

Configure blob versioning

1. It’s important to keep track of the different website product document versions.

• Go to the Overview blade of the storage account.
• In the Properties section, locate the Blob service section.
• Select the Versioning setting.

• Ensure the Enable versioning for blobs checkbox is checked.
• Notice your options to keep all versions or delete versions after.
• Save your changes.

Blob versioning allows users to maintain previous versions of blobs when modified or deleted. This helps users recover data from previous versions, enhancing data protection and management in Azure Blob storage.

In this walkthrough, we configured an Azure Blob Storage account tailored for a high traffic public website with a global audience. By enabling Read Access Geo Redundant Storage, we ensured the content remains available even during a regional outage. Setting up anonymous blob access allows customers worldwide to access images and documents without needing to log in, keeping the experience seamless.

We also put two important data protection measures in place, soft delete gives a 21-day recovery window in case files are accidentally removed, while blob versioning ensures that previous versions of documents are preserved whenever changes are made. Together, these features provide a resilient, accessible, and well-managed storage solution that meets the demands of a mission-critical public website.