Mohsen

Azure Blob Storage - quick view:

Technical considerations:
Assumption: File type is supported, files have proper naming convention to find them easily, no backup is needed, soft delete option is set for correct amount of time, firewall is not needed, other components such as connectivity /private endpoint/VM (for supporting the software) are already in place and they are beyond the scope of this document, the minimum latency is not required ( Standard tier).



Azure Component: Azure Blob Storage (Standard)



Hot tier - An online tier optimized for storing data that is accessed or modified frequently. The Hot tier has the highest storage costs, but the lowest access costs.
Cool tier- An online tier optimized for storing data that is infrequently accessed or modified. Data in the Cool tier should be stored for a minimum of 30 days. The Cool tier has lower storage costs and higher access costs compared to the Hot tier.
Archive tier- An offline tier optimized for storing data that is rarely accessed, and that has flexible latency requirements, on the order of hours. Data in the Archive tier should be stored for a minimum of 180 days. Setting the tier from Archive to Hot or Cool typically takes up to 15 hours to complete (for accessing the Archived data).



Reference for more details: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/access-tiers-overview



Blob Lifecycle Management (Automatic transition the data between tiers and auto delete)
Blob storage lifecycle management offers a rule-based policy that you can use to transition your data to the desired access tier when your specified conditions are met. You can also use lifecycle management to expire data at the end of its life (It will take rules at least 48 hours to take effect).
Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/lifecycle-management-overview
Using Index Tags (advanced – optional feature)
Blob index tags provide data management and discovery capabilities by using key-value index tag attributes. Container and blob name prefixes are one-dimensional categorizations. Blob index tags allow for multi-dimensional categorization. It involves additional cost to use indexing on storage.
Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/storage-manage-find-blobs?tabs=azure-portal



Security Recommendation for Blob storage:
Refer to Microsoft documents: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/security-recommendations



Redundancy:

Redundancy is a decision based of the importance and level of critically of the data for the business.
At the moment we are using ZRS ( Zone Redundancy) however geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS), which uses ZRS in the primary region and also geo-replicates your data to a secondary region , is very expensive.
Note: The Archive tier for Blob Storage isn't currently supported for ZRS, GZRS, or RA-GZRS accounts.
For reference of more details: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-redundancy



Cost Calculation:
Storage cost, operation costs, fixed costs for other components such as Firewall rules / networking and connectivity/ transaction costs.
Azure Blob Storage pricing: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/storage/blobs/

An example:





Reserved Capacity: If you keep a large amount of data in hot tier or cool tier this option may be considered.



For general calculation of the costs on Azure refer to: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-au/pricing/calculator/
Azure Firewall Costs relating to data transaction:
If the company insists the data being processed by Azure Firewall the additional costs will happen:




Reference: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-au/pricing/details/azure-firewall/


•Written by: Mohsen
•CopyRight: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
•CopyRight Notice: You can use or share this article for free but you have to mention the the writer name ( Written by: Mohsen ) and share the Link: https://forum.golzarion.com/entry.php?b=31&langid=1