Core Azure Storage Services
Flashcard Study
What is an Azure storage account?
An Azure storage account contains all of your Azure Storage data objects, including blobs, file shares, queues, tables, and disks. It provides a unique namespace for your Azure Storage data that's accessible from anywhere in the world over HTTP or HTTPS.
What are the different types of storage accounts offered by Azure Storage?
Azure Storage offers several types of storage accounts, including Standard general-purpose v2, Premium block blobs, Premium file shares, and Premium page blobs. Each type supports different features and has its own pricing model.
What storage services does the Standard general-purpose v2 storage account support?
The Standard general-purpose v2 storage account supports Blob Storage, Queue Storage, Table Storage, and Azure Files.
What are the redundancy options for the Standard general-purpose v2 storage account?
The Standard general-purpose v2 storage account supports Locally redundant storage (LRS), geo-redundant storage (GRS), read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS), zone-redundant storage (ZRS), geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS), and read-access geo-zone-redundant storage (RA-GZRS).
What storage services does the Premium block blobs storage account support?
The Premium block blobs storage account supports Blob Storage.
What are the redundancy options for the Premium block blobs storage account?
The Premium block blobs storage account supports LRS and ZRS.
What is the recommended usage for the Premium block blobs storage account?
The Premium block blobs storage account is the premium storage account type for block blobs and append blobs. It is recommended for scenarios with high transaction rates or that use smaller objects or require consistently low storage latency.
What is the generally recommended storage account type?
The Standard general-purpose v2 storage account is the generally recommended storage account type for most scenarios using Azure Storage. If you want support for network file system (NFS) in Azure Files, use the premium file shares account type.
What is Azure Blob storage?
Azure Blob storage is Microsoft's object storage solution for the cloud, optimized for storing massive amounts of unstructured data, such as text or binary data.
What is unstructured data?
Unstructured data is data that doesn't adhere to a particular data model or definition, such as text or binary data.
What are some common uses of Blob storage?
Some common uses of Blob storage include serving images or documents directly to a browser, storing files for distributed access, streaming video and audio, writing to log files, and storing data for backup and restore, disaster recovery, and archiving.
How can you access objects in Blob storage?
Objects in Blob storage can be accessed via HTTP/HTTPS, using the Azure Storage REST API, Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, or an Azure Storage client library.
What is Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2?
Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 is Microsoft's enterprise big data analytics solution for the cloud, which offers a hierarchical file system as well as the advantages of Blob storage, including low-cost, tiered storage, high availability, strong consistency, and disaster recovery capabilities.
What are the different access tiers offered by Azure Storage for blob storage?
The different access tiers offered by Azure Storage for blob storage include Hot access tier, Cool access tier, and Archive access tier.
What is the Hot access tier optimized for?
The Hot access tier is optimized for storing data that is accessed frequently, such as images for a website.
What is the Archive access tier optimized for?
The Archive access tier is optimized for data that is rarely accessed and stored for at least 180 days, with flexible latency requirements, such as long-term backups. This tier offers the lowest storage costs but also the highest access costs.
What protocols can Azure Files file shares be accessed via?
Azure Files file shares can be accessed via the industry standard Server Message Block (SMB) protocol or Network File System (NFS) protocol.
What operating systems can access SMB Azure file shares?
Windows, Linux, and macOS clients can access SMB Azure file shares.
What operating systems can access NFS Azure Files shares?
Linux or macOS clients can access NFS Azure Files shares.
What is the purpose of Azure File Sync?
Azure File Sync is used to cache SMB Azure file shares on Windows Servers for fast access near where the data is being used.
How can Azure file shares be used to simplify cloud development?
Azure file shares can be used to simplify cloud development by providing a centralized location for configuration files, a place for cloud applications to write their logs, metrics, and crash dumps, and as a location to store tools and utilities for developers and administrators.
How can Azure file shares be used for containerization?
Azure file shares can be used as persistent volumes for stateful containers, allowing them to access the file system no matter which instance they run on.
What is the maximum size of a message in Azure Queue Storage?
A queue message can be up to 64 KB in size.
What is the purpose of Azure Queue Storage?
Azure Queue Storage is a service for storing large numbers of messages, which enables communication between components of a distributed application.
What are the components of an Azure Queue Storage?
The components of an Azure Queue Storage include the URL, the storage account itself, the queue itself, and the message.
How is Azure Queue Storage accessed?
Azure Queue Storage can be accessed from anywhere in the world via authenticated calls using HTTP or HTTPS.
How many messages can an Azure queue contain?
An Azure queue may contain millions of messages.
What is Azure Table storage?
Azure Table storage is a service that stores non-relational structured data (also known as structured NoSQL data) in the cloud.
What is the limit on the number of entities that can be stored in a table?
You can store any number of entities in a table, and a storage account may contain any number of tables, up to the capacity limit of the storage account.
What are Azure managed disks?
Azure managed disks are block-level storage volumes that are managed by Azure and used with Azure Virtual Machines. They are like a physical disk in an on-premises server but virtualized.
What are the available types of disks in Azure?
The available types of disks in Azure are ultra disks, premium solid-state drives (SSD), standard SSDs, and standard hard disk drives (HDD).
What are Azure ultra disks best suited for?
Azure ultra disks are best suited for data-intensive workloads such as SAP HANA, top-tier databases, and transaction-heavy workloads.
What is the default max storage capacity for Azure ultra disks?
Azure ultra disks offer up to 32-TiB per region per subscription by default.
What workloads are Azure Premium SSDs best suited for?
Azure Premium SSDs are best suited for mission-critical production applications with IO-intensive workloads.
What workloads are Azure standard SSDs best suited for?
Azure standard SSDs are best suited for workloads that need consistent performance at lower IOPS levels, such as web servers, low IOPS application servers, lightly used enterprise applications, and non-production workloads.
What workloads are Azure standard HDDs best suited for?
Azure standard HDDs are best suited for latency-tolerant workloads, such as dev/test scenarios and less critical workloads.
What is the availability of Azure managed disks?
Azure managed disks are designed for 99.999% availability by providing three replicas of your data, allowing for high durability.
What are the three main disk roles in Azure?
The three main disk roles in Azure are the data disk, the OS disk, and the temporary disk. Data disk is a managed disk that's attached to a virtual machine to store application data, OS disk is the disk that contains the pre-installed OS and boot volume, and the Temporary disk is a short-term storage for applications and processes.
What is the main benefit of using Azure Storage?
Azure Storage always stores multiple copies of your data so that it is protected from planned and unplanned events, including transient hardware failures, network or power outages, and massive natural disasters.
What is the difference between locally redundant storage (LRS) and zone-redundant storage (ZRS)?
Locally redundant storage (LRS) replicates your storage account three times within a single data center in the primary region, while zone-redundant storage (ZRS) replicates your storage account synchronously across three Azure availability zones in the primary region.
What type of scenario is LRS a good choice for?
LRS is a good choice for scenarios where the application stores data that can be easily reconstructed if data loss occurs, or if the application is restricted to replicating data only within a country or region due to data governance requirements.
What type of scenario is ZRS a good choice for?
ZRS is a good choice for scenarios that require high availability, and for restricting replication of data within a country or region to meet data governance requirements. Microsoft recommends using ZRS for Azure Files workloads.
What services are supported by ZRS?
ZRS is supported for all Azure Storage services through standard general-purpose v2 storage accounts, including: Azure Blob storage, Azure Files, Azure Table storage, and Azure Queue storage.
What protection does LRS afford your data?
LRS protects your data against server rack and drive failures. However, if a disaster such as fire or flooding occurs within the data center, all replicas of a storage account using LRS may be lost or unrecoverable.
What is the difference in durability between LRS and ZRS?
LRS provides at least 99.999999999% (11 nines) durability of objects over a given year, while ZRS offers durability for storage resources of at least 99.9999999999% (12 9's) over a given year.
What is the purpose of copying data to a secondary region in Azure Storage?
The purpose of copying data to a secondary region in Azure Storage is to provide high durability and protect against complete regional outages or disasters in which the primary region is not recoverable.
What are the two options for copying data to a secondary region in Azure Storage?
The two options for copying data to a secondary region in Azure Storage are geo-redundant storage (GRS) and geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS).
How does data replication differ between GRS and GZRS in the primary region?
In GRS, data is replicated synchronously three times within a single physical location in the primary region using LRS. In GZRS, data is replicated synchronously across three Azure availability zones in the primary region using ZRS.
How is data replicated in the secondary region for GRS and GZRS?
In the secondary region, data is always replicated synchronously three times using LRS for both GRS and GZRS.
What is the purpose of GZRS in Azure Storage?
GZRS is designed for applications requiring maximum consistency, durability, and availability, excellent performance, and resilience for disaster recovery. It provides at least 99.99999999999999% (16 9's) durability of objects over a given year.
What Azure Storage services support GZRS?
GZRS is supported by all of the Azure Storage services, including Azure Blob storage, Azure Files, Azure Table storage, and Azure Queue storage.
What type of storage accounts support GZRS?
Only standard general-purpose v2 storage accounts support GZRS.