Az - Blob Storage

👉 Overview

👀 What ?

Azure Blob Storage is a service provided by Microsoft Azure. It is a scalable and cost-effective storage solution for large amounts of unstructured data, such as text or binary data. The basic unit of storage in Azure Blob Storage is called a 'blob'.

🧐 Why ?

Blob Storage is essential for various applications and services that require storing large amounts of unstructured data. This includes services like streaming audio and video, storing images for websites, storing data for backup, disaster recovery, and archiving. It's also crucial for data analysis, as it can store log files, raw data for your machine learning models, and more. Businesses should care about Azure Blob Storage because of its cost-effectiveness, scalability, and durability.

⛏️ How ?

To use Azure Blob Storage, you first need to create a storage account in the Azure portal. After creating a storage account, you can create a container. Within this container, you can upload, download, and manage blobs. You can also set permissions for who can access your blobs. Integration with Azure services and applications can be done using the Azure Storage client libraries, REST APIs, or Azure portal.

⏳ When ?

Azure Blob Storage was first introduced in 2008 as part of the Azure Storage services. Its use has grown since then as businesses and applications continue to generate more and more data that needs to be stored and analyzed.

⚙️ Technical Explanations

Azure Blob Storage operates in the cloud, making it accessible from anywhere in the world. Data in Blob Storage is stored in containers, which act like directories in a file system. There are three types of blobs: Block blobs, Page blobs, and Append blobs. Block blobs are used for streaming and storing text and binary data, Page blobs are used for random access scenarios and Append blobs are optimized for append operations, making them ideal for logging scenarios. Blob Storage automatically replicates the data in your storage account to ensure durability and high availability.