Azure File Storage

Hello readers. In this Microsoft Azure journey, we have seen multiple solutions that are offered by Microsoft Azure. So, in today’s article, we will look at one of the most important storage solution services that are offered by Microsoft and it is known as Azure File Storage. Let’s start!!!

What is Azure’s File Storage?

Microsoft Azure’s File Storage services offer shared storage space to the users by using Server Message Block (SMB) and with the help of Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocols.

It will allow the clients to use windows explorer which allows them to connect and browse the File Storage.

In windows file share the users are capable to add directory structures and files to the share. Microsoft Azure’s File share can mount over multiple operating systems such as Windows, Linux and Mac OS.

Azure File Storage Components

1. Microsoft Azure Storage Account

Microsoft Azure’s Storage Account will offer access to all the storage objects available in Azure such as Queue, Blob, Files, Tables and disks.
It consists of a unique name the users can access globally. Storage accounts offer options for various configurations for the users to use the resources.
It also provides information on the resources that are available so that it helps the users to manage the storage account limitation and distribute equally across all the storage services.

2. Microsoft Azure Storage Shares

Microsoft Azure follows the industry-standard SMB protocol for sharing the files and directories to the cloud.
SMB file share holds all the files and directory inside it and also allows the user to create their files and directory inside the SMB, but the users should also remember that they cannot create their files and directory in the storage account.
Every Azure Account can have unbounded share numbers and every share is capable of having multiple files. Azure builds file storage shares before loading or creating any file or directory.
Once the file directory is successfully created then the user can use the same directory to upload the files and directory.

3. Microsoft Azure Directory

Microsoft’s Azure directory follows a hierarchy file system or directory system depending upon the particular category such as documents. Logs and media related files that are stored inside a particular categorical directory.

4. Microsoft Azure Files

Users create files or they can upload them inside the Azure Storage shares. These files can be built in any format such as text, CSV, image or with any application. Azure files have the capability to support identity-based authentication over the SMB protocol.

5. URL Format

URL format is required if any request is made for the Azure share with the help of REST protocol and the syntax of the URL should be as follows:

https://<storage_account_name>.file.core.window.net/<storage_share_name>/<direcotory_name>/<file_name>

Azure File Storage Tiers

1. Premium Tier File

The Premium File share tier is enabled for high Input and Outputs which is required for intensive workloads with a higher rate of throughput and low latency.
The premium file share offers a high-performance solid-state drive (SSD) depending upon the storage size.

2. Transaction Optimized File

Transaction optimized file shares are allowed for the transaction of heavy workloads which does not require latency.
These files share are always recommended for applications that require file storage or for backend storage.

3. Hot Tier

Hot File share will provide a storage optimized solution for general purpose file-sharing cases like the team shares and Azure File Sync.

4. Cool Tier

Cool Gile share will provide the most cost-efficient storage optimized solution for online archive storage cases.

Microsoft Azure File Storage Data Access Techniques

1. Direct Cloud Access

As we know Microsoft Azure’s file share can be easily mounted upon any machines or servers running with Windows macOS or Unix platform.

It also takes the help of a service messaging block which is also known as SMB protocol or REST API for file sharing because Azure offers SMB access.

For deploying a file to Azure, the storage does not require a NAS device or a file service because Microsoft’s Azure file share is serverless.

And, because of this the management and maintenance of the file or application become easier and regular deployment of software patches are avoided.

Currently, Azure supports SMB client 2.1 or higher thus, the Operating System should provide the support for the same while developing any machine or Virtual Machine for a file share.

Therefore the users should always remember that while mounting the Azure file share on any on-premise workstation data center, the client version of SMB should be higher than 3.0.

2. Microsoft Azure File Synchronization

Azure file synchronization is widely used to create the replication of the file share inside the on-premise server or in the Microsoft Azure Window platform.

Basically, it will manage and centralize the organization files in the Azure files and will offer a low latency while accessing the flexibility and compatibility of the on-premise file servers.

The users can access the files shared inside the SMB or NFS with the help of Azure’s Windows server.

Azure file synchronization will regularly synchronize the files by keeping the frequently accessed data at the endpoint and the least accessed data at the Azure file share so that the access rate can be faster and the user should experience great performance.

Steps to Create Azure’s File Storage

Follow the below steps to create Azure File storage:

1: The first step for the user is to navigate to the Storage Account and then click on the Files.

2: In the second step the user will see a list of all the storage services that are available in Azure. For creating Azure File Storage the user should click on the +File Share button.

3: In the third step, the user should enter the File Share Name and its Quote which is Data in GB.

4: Now, the user should click on the OK button.

5: Choose the file and then click on the upload button.

6: Click on the Connect button which is available on the top. It will display the commands that are required to map.

Why are Azure Files Useful?

1. Replace or Supplement the On-premises File Servers

The administrators of an organization can take the help of Azure Files for replacing or supplementing the traditional or the old-school on-premises file servers or NAS devices.

Windows, macOS and Linux can easily and directly mount over the Azure file shares globally. SMB Azure files shares can also be easily replicated with the help of Azure File Sync to Windows Servers either in the cloud or on-premises.

With the latest release of Azure Files AD Authentication, SMB Azure file shares can continuously work with AD hosted on-premises for access control.

2. Lift and Shift the Applications

Azure Files helps the administrators to easily lift and shift the applications in the cloud environment that are expected to share for storing the file application or user data.

Azure files allow the administrators with classic lift and shift scenarios where both the application and its data can be transferred to the Azure.

Simultaneously, in the “Hybrid” lift and shift model the application’s data is transferred to the Azure files and then the application seamlessly continues to run on-premises.

3. Simplifying the Cloud Development

The administrators use Azure Files in multiple ways for simplifying the new cloud development projects. Below we have mentioned some examples.

4. Shared Application Settings

It is a common pattern that is applied for distributed applications that have to configure the files in a centralized location.

From here the users can access them from various instances.

The Application instances can load the configuration from the File REST API, and the users can access them as per the requirement by mounting the SMB share locally.

5. Diagnostic Share

Microsoft’s Azure File Share is a suitable location for the cloud applications to write the logs, metrics and crash dumps.

Logs can be written by application instances with the help of REST API, and then the developers are authorized to access them by mounting the file share on their local working machine.

This provides greater flexibility as the developers can embrace cloud development without creating any damage to their existing tools.

6. Dev/Test/Debug

When the developers or administrators are performing tasks on VMs in the cloud, they mostly require a set of tools or utilities.

Thus, copying such utilities and tools for every VM can be a time-consuming process.

So, by mounting the Azure files can be shared locally on the VMs and the developer and administrators can smoothly access their tools and utilities and no copying of tools is required.

Key Benefits of Azure File Storage

1. Shared Access

Azure files shares will support the industry-standard SMB and NFS protocols which means the administrators can replace their on-premises files shares with Azure file shares without concern about the application’s compatibility.
Thus, the developers can share the file system across multiple machines, applications or instances in a dignified manner and it provides the advantage with Azure Files for applications that require shareability.

2. Fully Managed

Azure file shares can be built without any management of hardware or OS. It means the developer does not have to deal with the patching of server OS along with crucial security upgrades or replacing faulty hard disks.

3. Scripting and Tooling

Developers can use PowerShell cmdlets and Azure CLI for creating, mounting and managing the Azure files shares as an administration task.
The developers can build and manage the Azure files with the help of the Azure portal and Azure Storage Explorer.

4. Resiliency

Microsoft builds the Azure Files from scratch for being always available. Thus, replacing the on-premises file shares with the Azure Files means they do not have any access to deal with local power outages or network issues.

5. Familiar Programmability

The applications that are running in Azure are capable of accessing the data in the file share by using file system I/O APIs.

Thus, developers can leverage their previous code and skills for migrating existing applications. Along with the system IO APIs the developers can use Azure Storage Client Libraries or the Azure Storage REST API.

Azure File Storage Use Cases

1. Migrating the Existing Applications to the Cloud

Several existing applications can access their data with the help of file-based APIs and they are specially designed to share the data with the help of SMB file shares.

Azure File Storage allows the administrators to migrate their on-premises file or file share-based applications towards Azure without any provisioning or managing the high available file server VMs

2. Sharing server data across on-premises and cloud

Azure users are now allowed to store the server data like log files, event data and backups inside the cloud for leveraging high availability, durability, scalability and geo-redundancy that is developed inside the Azure storage platform.

With the encryption feature in SMB 3.0, the users can securely mount the Azure File Storage shares globally.

Thus, the applications that are running in the cloud are allowed to share the data with on-premises applications providing the same consistency which is available at on-premises SMB servers.

3. Integrate modern applications with Azure File Storage

With the help of modern REST API, Azure’s File Storage implements an additional SMB 3.0 then they can integrate their legacy applications with the modern cloud applications. Otherwise, they can build new file or file share-based applications.

4. Simplify hosting High Availability (HA) workload data

Azure File Storage will continuously deliver the availability so that it will simplify the effort to the host HA to workload the data inside the cloud.

The continuous handling is allowed in SMB 3.0 which increases the high availability rate where the file share will be able to host the applications like SQL Server and IIS in Azure with the data stored inside the file storage.

Azure File Storage Characteristics

SMB 3.0 Protocol Support

In addition SMB 2.1 supports through the preview and now it supports SMB 3.0 which includes encryption and persistent handling.

Azure’s File Storage was restricted from connecting from the same region because of lacking encryption in the previous SMB 2.1 protocol.

With the help of an encryption system in SMB 3.0 clients can connect globally.

But they should note that the mounting and sharing from outside of Azure’s datacenter requires port 445 and it cannot be blocked by the ISP or firewalls.

Also, along with the encryption, the use of SMB 3.0 increases the availability of file share by allowing transparent failover in the clients.

It will also permit persistent access to the files without the loss of session state. The clients can also leverage this capacity of hosting the HA workloads data.

But one should remember that when the client is accessing the Azure File Storage the actual SMB version will be dependent upon the client OS.

Below, we have mentioned the list of SMB versions which is supported for Windows Client. They are as follows:

They are as follows:

Users can also access Azure’s File Storage with the Linux system via SMB protocol. When the user is building a Linux virtual machine the user can specify the Linux image which supports SMB 2.1 or higher from Azure’s image gallery.

Below we have mentioned the list of suggested Linux images. They are as follows:

File Explorer on the Azure Preview portal

Azure’s Preview Portal offers a new user interface for the customers to manage Azure’s File Storage. One can perform the following tasks from their browser.

• The user can create and delete the file shares
• Secondly, the user can upload and download the files to and from their file share
• The users can adjust the file share quota
• Also, one can get the complete net use command which can be used with Windows client for mounting the file share.

Diagnosing Azure File Storage issues via Azure Storage Metrics

Azure’s Storage Analytics offers metrics data for a storage account which includes Blob, Table and Queue Storage, File Storage.

The users can use metrics data to perform their analysis and help to diagnose the issues.

For using metrics for Azure File Storage the user must enable them with the help of File Service Properties operations with REST API or storage client libraries.

Tooling support for IT pros and developers

IT Pros can provide the benefits of multiple tools that are for managing the Azure File Storage which includes the tools as follows:

• AzCopy
• Azure Powershell (Windows)
• Azure Cross-Platform Command Line Interface (Linux/Unix).

Developers can also use and leverage the REST API as well as the storage client libraries of .NET, Java, Node and Python for making the applications with Azure File Storage.

Pricing

For Azure’s pricing, the users can visit Azure’s pricing page for detailed information. The preview users should automatically transit to the GA users at service GA.

There is no requirement of any actions to preview the customers.

Available regions

Azure File Storage is available in all public Azure regions for the users and mostly it will be available for Azure’s US Government and soon for Azure China customers.

Using Azure Files for FSLogix user profile data with Azure Virtual Desktop

Azure Files offer multiple tiers which the user can choose depending upon their budget and performance requirements.

Continuous shared file storage for containers

Users can easily share their data between the containers with the help of NFS or SMB File shares. Azure Files are strongly connected with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for easy cloud file storage and data management.

Features of Azure File Storage

1. Serverless File Sharing

Azure has developed a powerful distributed file system from the lower section and thus it provides higher availability and durability with no hidden IaaS Virtual Machines (VMs) or any NAS files.

2. Developed for Hybrid with File Synchronization

The users can easily transform their Windows servers into the caches of their cloud shares without quitting the on-premises performance.

3. Optimized Total Cost Ownership (TCO)

Azure offers multiple tiers that can be used to design their shares depending upon their performance requirements and budget.

4. Supporting Multiple Protocols

Azure provides support to several protocols which allow the users to enable the data which can be stored from several sources.

Things To Remember

The user should remember that the maximum file share size is 5 TB and the file in the file share cannot be more than 1TB.

Secondly, every Azure File share is capable of supporting 1000 IOPS and 60MB/s throughput.

Lastly, the File Share names should be only in lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens should be mentioned initially and the ending should be also done with a letter or a number. And, the number cannot have two hyphens continuously.

Conclusion

Thus, we are at the last stage of our today’s article and we came to know that Azure’s File Storage service is much more secure and scalable as compared to the traditional data storage systems.

It provides simple access control with a File Storage Management Platform. Azure File Storage service will make use of an SMB protocol for sharing the data and if there is a requirement of an integration the users have to spend minimum time on managing and maintaining the Azure File Storage Service.

Along with that, it is a very cost-effective service depending upon the user’s requirement.