What is an Azure Storage?
Azure provides many ways to store your data, including multiple database options like Azure SQL Database, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Table Storage.
Azure offers multiple ways to store and send messages, such as Azure Queues and Event Hubs. You can even store loose files using services like Azure Files and Azure Blobs.
Azure groups four of these data services together under the name Azure Storage. The four services are:
- Azure Blobs
- Azure Files
- Azure Queues
- Azure Tables
What is a storage account?
A storage account is a container that groups a set of Azure Storage services together. Only data services from Azure Storage can be included in a storage account (Azure Blobs, Azure Files, Azure Queues, and Azure Tables).
A storage account is an Azure resource and is part of a resource group.
How to create a storage account
Step 1:
Sign in to the Azure portal and select the portal menu.
Step 2:
From the drop down menu, select Storage accounts. Then select + Create from the Storage accounts pane.
Step 3:
On the Basics tab, enter the values for each setting.
Step 4:
Project details
- Choose your subscription.
- Choose your resource group name from the dropdown list.
Create a resource group here if you do not have one to create the storage account under. To do this, enter the resource group name and select OK.
Instance details
- Storage account name: Enter a unique name. This name is used to generate the public URL to access the data in the account. The name must be unique across all existing storage account names in Azure. Names must have 3 to 24 characters and can contain only lowercase letters and numbers.
- Region: Select a location near to you from the dropdown list.
- Performance: Standard. This option decides the type of disk storage used to hold the data in the Storage account. Standard uses traditional hard disks, and Premium uses solid-state drives (SSD) for faster access.
- Redundancy: Select Locally redundant storage (LRS) from the dropdown list. In our case, the images and videos quickly become out-of-date and are removed from the site. As a result, there's little value to paying extra for Geo-redundant storage (GRS). If a catastrophic event results in data loss, you can restart the site with fresh content from your users.
Step 5:
Selecting Next takes you to the Advanced tab which is beyond the scope of this post.
Select Review + create
Unless you're a database administrator creating accounts for team members, most of the time, you would not need Advanced, Networking, Data protection, Encryption, Tags settings.
After selecting Review + create, then Validation in progress pops up.
After some seconds, the just created storage account name can be seen in the left pane.
You'll see the Overview of the account: location, subscription, performance, replication, account kind, and so on.
At the top right hand corner, under your profile, is ...initializing deployment... It's now creating the resources needed for the account.
Step 6:
Now that Deployment is complete, Select Go To Resource, then the User Interface for this particular storage account opens.
The account name is displayed on the side bar, there are many features here too. You'll find the Storage browser very useful, this is where data is actually uploaded, stored and accessed.
Conclusion
Setting up an Azure Storage account is a fundamental skill for any developer looking to leverage the cloud for data management. By following these steps, you’ve created a centralized container that can handle everything from loose files in Blobs to structured data in Tables.
Whether you are building an app to host high-quality videos or managing simple file shares via Azure Files, the Azure Portal provides a powerful, visual way to get your infrastructure running in minutes. Remember to keep your storage account names unique and lowercase, and always utilize the Storage browser to interact with your data directly.
Top comments (0)