The top Azure Blogs we follow.

The top Azure Blogs we follow.

by | Oct 1, 2020 | Azure, How To

The Top Azure blogs we follow

As Microsoft is forever releasing new functionality within Azure and all its offerings its often hard to keep abreast of the latest changes in technology.

To do so, we here at SmiKar Software often follow influential and knowledgeable people that are experts in the their fields, to keep up to date ourselves. In no particular order, here are some of the noteworthy Azure Blogs that we follow. 

They all help us understand and keep up to date with Azure and technology in general, hopefully they can do the same for you too.

Where to get the best Microsoft Azure News

Build 5 Nines

Founded by Chris Pietschmann  in 2015 (originally as BuildAzure.com) with a focus on Microsoft Azure, Hyper-V, VMware and Citrix content. Articles are written by both Chris and Dan Patrick which are both Microsoft Most Valued Professionals (MVP) and their blog provides great weekly content with over 11,000 subscribers.

Robert Smit MVP Blog

Robert Smit’s has over 20 years experience and is another Microsoft Most Valued Professional (MVP) in both Clusterings and Cloud and Datacentre. His blog provides great insight in to Azure with lots of relevant how to guides. 

Rebel Admin

Dishan Francis’s provides a comprehensive blog that is over 7 years old. His blog is not just about Microsoft Azure but also on Azure Active Directory. His blogs are very informative and often go quite in to technical detail.

Why Azure

Aavisek Choudhury works for Unisys as a Lead Azure Cloud Platform Architect. He has been working with Microsoft technologies since 2000 and his blog provides his knowledge and insights in to Azure.

Microsoft’s own Azure Blog

Now any blog list for Azure cant be complete without Microsoft’s own blog on Azure. Great site to quickly find information on Azure new services and updates. 

Christiaan Brinkhoff 

Christiaan has a great blog primarily focused on Virtual Desktop technology where he gives his views and knowledge on everything Microsoft, VMware and Citrix. 

Techie Lass

Sarah Lean works for Microsoft and while her blog is fairly new, she provides a great blog to follow on Azure and Microsoft Teams. Her expertise inst just in those but also her career has been focused on Microsoft Exchange, SCCM and Patch Management.

Ryan Mangan’s IT blog

Ryan Mangan is the Chief Technology Officer at Systech IT Solutions and is passionate about End User Computing. His blogs are a great guide for Azure and Virtual Desktop information. 

Tech KB

Michael Coutanche’s blog is focuesd on Azure, Hyper-V, System Centre Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and Remote Desktop Services with great informative articles and how to guides.

Practical 365

Practical 365 is a joint effort from Steve Goodman and Paul Robichaux, who both happen to be Microsoft Most Valued Professionals.Their blog provides information on Azure, Office 365, Exchange, Sharepoint and more.

Modern Workplace Blog

Kenneth van Surksum is a senior consultant at Insight24 (and yet another Microsoft Most Valued Professional) and his blog provides information on Azure and Office 365 solutions as well as System Centre Configuration Manager (SCCM) and Intune.

Managing Cloud and Datacentre

Tao Yang is another great blogger and also yet again another Microsoft Most Valued Professional who in his blogs shares his thoughts about Azure and Office 365 technologies.

Azure and Beyond

Thomas Janet’s check has over 15 years experience in both on premises and cloud infrastructure solutions. His great blog provides his thoughts on Azure and cloud based technologies. He is also another Microsoft Most Valued Professional.

I am the IT Geek

Shabaz Darr writes a great blog called I am IT Geek (Aren’t we all at heart).  His blog delves in to his experiences with technology, especially Microsoft Azure and Teams.

Daniel’s Tech Blog

Daniel Neumann is a mutli time Microsoft Most Valued Professional. His blogs are a great source of information on Azure, with a good focus on Kubernetes.

Jamie Maguire’s Blog

Jamie has been in the software industry for years and worked mainly with Microsoft .Net. We find his blogs a great source for coding and Azure in general. Jamie is another Microsoft Most Valuable Professional.

Azure Centric

Another Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, Marcos Nogueira’s blog Azure Centric is just that. A great informative blog that provides you with great how to guides on the setup of various Azure Services.

Thomas Thorton

Thomas Thorton is highly accredited in Microsfot Azure technologies. His blog has a heavy devops focus and has insightful information on deploying services in Microsoft Azure.

Sams Learn Azure

Sam Smith is also hold accreditation as an Azure Architect and Azure Developer / Devops. His blogs go in to great detail around his coding passion and of course Azure.

Pixel Robots

Richard Hooper (yes, another Microsoft Most Valuable Professional) provides a blog on Azure as well as great study guides to help you get certified.

These are the Top Cloud Blogs that we follow

Hopefully you agree. If you know of any Azure blogs or even Microsoft Blogs that we should know of or even if you are new Azure Blogger yourself, please contact us and we would be happy to review the site, and add it to the list.

What is Azure Blob Storage?

What is Azure Blob Storage?

by | Sep 23, 2020 | Azure, Azure Blobs, Blob Storage, Storage Accounts

Azure Blob Storage

Blobs, Blobs and more Blobs.

If you have ever had the need to store large amounts of files and data, then Azure’s Blob Storage is made for you.

Microsoft’s Azure Cloud provides huge benefits with not only their fantastic services, locations, availability and support, but also in their almost seemingly infinite capacity.

Azure Blob Storage is not only scalable, durable and almost always available it also provides flexibility to scale as your business requirements need.

A huge benefit to using Azure services is the pay as you go service model, that allows you to only pay for the services you consume. No more need to over provision local file servers hard drives for expected capacity, with Azure Blob Storage you upload your files to Azure and only pay for the space you need.

Azure Blob Storage

What is Azure Blob Storage?

Azure Blob Storage Overview

Azure Blob Storage (Blob stands for Binary Large Object) is storage provided by Microsoft’s Azure for unstructured data. Perfect for massive amounts of data. Example use cases are as a target for your log or analytics data, or Blob Storage can be used as a backup and archival location, and even things like files, pictures and music files. Basically Azure Blob Storage is a great dumping ground for huge amounts of your data. A Blob is actually a file which is stored in a directory like structure called a Container, then within an Azure Storage Account, and an Azure Resource Group and finally an Azure Subscription.

Access to each Azure Blob is provided by a HTTPS link directly to the Blob itself, meaning you can access the file from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Obviously if you dont want the data exposed to the whole world, you can lock this down to meet your security needs.

Azure Blob Storage Hierachy


Azure Storage Account Structure

Concept Description
Azure Resource Group
 Used to contain related resources together for a solution. Logical collection of configuration items within Azure. Can contain Virtual Machines, Virtual Networks, and other items.
Azure Storage Accounts
 Top level of Storage Services within Azure. Contains Blobs, Queue Tables, File Shares and Virtual Machine disks. Can be accessed from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Default limit of 250 Storage Accounts per region and per subscription, with no limits on the number of Azure Storage Containers or Blobs contained within.
Azure Storage Containers
 Used like a folder that contains all your blobs. Unlimited amount of Storage Containers per Storage Account.
Azure Blobs

Any type of file that is unstructured and stored within an Azure Storage Container. Can store large amounts of Blobs within each container, and these could be things like document files, images, and other multimedia.

 

 

Azure Blob Storage Availability

Additionally when creating your Azure Storage Account you can choose how much redundancy / availability for your Azure Blob Storage. While Microsoft provides an SLA on the uptime of your storage, choosing the correct availability of your Azure Storage Account will ensure your Azure Blobs are accessible in the event of failure.

  • LRS – Locally Redundant Storage – Keeps a synchronous copy of your Azure Blobs three times within the same Azure Datacentre. This is the least cost option
  • ZRS – Zone Redundant Storage – Replicates your Azure Blobs synchronous across three Azure Availability Zones in the primary region.
  • GRS – Geo-Redundant Storage– Copies your Azure Blobs synchronous three times within the same Azure Datacentre, then copies the same Azure Blobs asynchronously across to  one other single location in another secondary Azure Region.
  • GZRS – Geo-Zone-Redundant Storage– Copies your Azure Blobs synchronous across three Azure Availability Zones in the primary region, then copies the same Azure Blobs asynchronously across to  one other single location in another secondary Azure Region.

Azure Blob Storage Tiering

Microsoft provides different storage tiering models for the storing of your data.

Each one has a different storage pricing model in Azure (per GB) and access requirements.

  • Hot – Best for data that  is accessed frequently. (most expensive per GB)
  • Cool – Great for data that is accessed infrequently. (not as expensive as Hot, but no where as cheap as the Archive Tier)
  • Archive – Perfect for data that is very rarely accessed. (cheapest per GB)

Azure Blob Storage Types

Azure Blob Storage has three different types

These are;

  • Block Blobs – Perfect for storing documents, text files or even your media files
  • Append Blobs – cannot be modified and requires you to upload a new blob.
  • Page Blobs – are used for storing Azure Virtual Machine disks.

Azure Blob Storage Limitations

Although Azure Blob Storage seems limitless, there are always some technical limitations that you should be aware of.

Some of these limitations are;

  • Service Level Agreement – Microsoft provides an uptime 99.99% on Azure Blob Storage
  • Maximum size of Storage Account – 500TB
  • Maximum size of a Single Blob – 5TB
  • Number of Blocks in a Blob – 50,000 blocks
  • Maximum size of a block – 100MB
  • Minimum size of a block – 64KB
  • Maximum Storage Account Capacity – 5PB
  • Number of Storage Accounts per Subscription – 200
  • Tiering – Only the Hot and Cool Access Tiers can be set at the root of the Storage Container. Archive Tier is per individual Blob. (you can select multiple files using Cloud Storage Manager to change to the Archive Tier. This isnt possible using the Azure Portal)
  • Archive Tier stores the data offline. This requires time to retrieve the Blob from the offline storage. There is additional cost to retrieve this data and the retrieval time can take several hours.
  • Archive Tier Rehydration – When a Blob is in the Archive Tier the data cannot be modified as it is actually offline. To modify a Blob in this Tier you would first need to rehydrate the Blob to an Online Tier (Hot or Cool)

Azure Blob Storage Unstructured Data

Azure Blob Storage Configurations and Options

 

Azure Blob Storage Pricing

 

As with anything cloud-based, be careful which options you select as there will be cost impacts. As an example, Locally Redundant Storage is the cheapest availability option for Microsoft’s Azure Blob Storage, whereas Geo Zone Redundant Storage provides the highest Availability, but costs significantly more.

For Azure Blob Tiering, the Archive Tier is the cheapest at almost a tenth of the cost of Cool and Hot Tiers..

Tiering LRS – Locally Redundant Storage ZRS – Zone Redundant Storage GRS – Geo-Redundant Storage RA-GRS – Read Access Geo-Redundant Storage GZRS – Geo Zone Redundant Storage RA-GZRS – Read Access Geo Zone Redundant Storage
Blob Storage – Archive Tier 0.03 cents for 10GB Option not available for Archive Tier 0.07 cents for 10GB 0.07 cents for 10GB Option not available for Archive Tier Option not available for Archive Tier
Blob Storage – Cool Tier 0.21 cents for 10GB 0.26 cents for 10GB 0.41 cents for 10GB 0.53 cents for 10GB 0.48 cents for 10GB 0.60 cents for 10GB
Blob Storage – Hot Tier 0.28 cents for 10GB 0.35 cents for 10GB 0.56 cents for 10GB 0.70 cents for 10GB 0.66 cents for 10GB 0.82 cents for 10GB

Now while the price does fluctutate at times, and even differentiates between the different Microsoft Azure Datacentres, the pricing table above has been given as a reference to the differences in costs and options on your Azure Storage.

To work out how much the cost differences, you can use the Microsoft Azure Pricing Calculator to work out the cost impacts to your solution

Azure Blob Storage Best Practices

Azure Blob Storage is a highly scalable, durable, and cost-effective object storage solution from Microsoft Azure. It is a great option for storing unstructured data, such as text and binary data, in the cloud. To get the most out of Azure Blob Storage, it’s important to follow some best practices. In this article, we will discuss the key best practices for Azure Blob Storage.

Use appropriate storage tiers:

Azure Blob Storage offers three storage tiers: Hot, Cool, and Archive. Hot storage is optimized for frequent access to data, Cool storage is optimized for infrequent access, and Archive storage is optimized for long-term data retention. Choose the right storage tier based on your data access patterns and the costs associated with each tier.

Enable versioning:

Versioning allows you to keep multiple versions of the same blob, so you can easily recover from accidental deletions or updates. To enable versioning, you can use the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure Storage REST API.

Use a content delivery network (CDN):

A CDN can help distribute your blobs globally and improve the performance and responsiveness of your applications. You can configure a CDN for your Blob Storage account by using the Azure portal or Azure CLI.

Use shared access signatures (SAS) wisely:

SAS is a secure way to grant access to your blobs without exposing your storage account key. However, it’s important to limit the scope of access granted by the SAS and to set an appropriate expiration time.

Enable encryption:

Azure Blob Storage supports encryption of data at rest using Azure Storage Service Encryption. This feature encrypts your data before it is written to disk and automatically decrypts it when you access it.

Use Azure Blob Storage events:

Azure Blob Storage events allow you to trigger serverless functions or logic apps when specific events occur in your storage account. You can use events to implement complex workflows or integrate with other Azure services.

Monitor and manage your storage account:

Regularly monitor the usage and performance of your storage account using Azure Monitor. You can set up alerts to receive notifications when certain thresholds are met, and you can also use Azure Policy to enforce policies and control access to your storage account.

Monitor usage and storage consumption:

Reduce cost by using Cloud Storage Manager to gain insights in to your cloud storage consumption.

Use the right tools for the job:

Azure Blob Storage provides a number of tools and SDKs for working with your blobs, including Azure Portal, Azure CLI, and Azure Storage REST API as well as our own Cloud Storage Manager. Choose the tool that best fits your needs and make sure to follow the best practices for each tool.

In conclusion, following these best practices can help you get the most out of Azure Blob Storage and ensure that your data is secure, scalable, and accessible. Whether you’re storing unstructured data or building applications that rely on Blob Storage, following these best practices can help you maximize your investment and minimize risks.

Do you want information on all your Blobs in Azure?

Azure Blob Storage Insights

Now that you have some background in to what Azure Blob Storage can do for you and are ready to take the jump and start uploading huge amounts of data to your Azure Storage Containers.

Cloud Storage Manager provides you with further insights in to your Azure consumption. Providing you with quick to see capacity information, searching through all your Blob Storage, as well as historical reporting of your Azure Storage Accounts consumption.

If you want to see exactly what is in your Azure Storage Accounts, download Cloud Storage Manager and test it for yourself for free.


Cloud Storage Manager Main Window

Azure Blob Storage Architecture

Azure Blob Storage is designed with a distributed architecture that provides high availability, durability, and scalability. The architecture comprises three layers:

Front-End Layer

The front-end layer handles incoming requests from clients and routes them to the appropriate back-end nodes.

Back-End Layer

The back-end layer consists of multiple storage nodes that store the data in a distributed manner. The data is stored in a redundant manner to ensure high availability and durability.

Blob Service Layer

The Blob Service Layer provides the APIs and SDKs for accessing the Blob Storage service. It also provides features such as authentication and authorization, metadata, and access control for Blob Storage.

How to view the size of all your Azure Storage Accounts

How to view the size of all your Azure Storage Accounts

by | Sep 17, 2020 | Azure, Azure Blobs, Cloud Computing, Storage Accounts

Why you should monitor your Azure Storage

Monitoring Azure storage usage is important for businesses because of the cost implications and the impact it can have on operations.

  1. Cost implications: Azure storage is a pay-as-you-go service, meaning businesses are charged based on their usage of storage, data transfer, and the number of storage transactions. Unmonitored storage usage can quickly lead to unexpected and unnecessarily high charges. Monitoring Azure storage usage helps businesses stay aware of their storage consumption and avoid overspending on storage costs.
  2. Impact on operations: Azure storage is a critical component of many business operations and applications. If storage usage is not properly monitored, it can result in a shortage of storage capacity, slow performance, and disruptions to operations. Monitoring storage usage can help prevent these issues by alerting businesses when their storage capacity is reaching its limit and allowing them to take action to prevent outages.

In summary, monitoring Azure storage usage is important for businesses to control costs, ensure adequate storage capacity, and avoid disruptions to operations. By monitoring storage usage, businesses can make informed decisions about their storage requirements and take proactive steps to manage costs and maintain optimal performance.

Do you really know how much Azure Storage you are using?

As more and more organisations dive into Azure, storage consumption continues to grow and so does the cost to businesses. Azure offers almost a limitless supply of storage, but this comes at a cost so it’s important to know exactly where that storage is going.

There are a few ways to get this information, either via the Azure portal, Azure Storage Explorer or even PowerShell. However, all these tools have limitations and to be honest, rather lacking and not that straightforward.

So first I’ll show you how to get this information using the Azure portal and Azure Storage Explorer and then show you how you can get a better picture and experience using our FREE TOOL, Cloud Storage Manager.

How to get the size of all Storage Accounts using the Azure portal

  1. Log into the Azure portal
  2. Select Monitor from the left hand panel or use the search bar at the top
  3. Select Storage Accounts from the left hand pane under the Insights section
  4. Use the Subscriptions drop down list and select which Subscriptions you want to view
  5. Select Capacity on the right pane next to Overview
  6. Use the Storage Accounts drop down list to select which storage accounts you are interested in viewing, or select All.

Here you will see the consumed storage for each of your selected subscriptions and storage accounts.


Azure Storage Accounts

Azure Storage Capacity View

This view will provide you with a quick overview of the capacity used for each storage account. Although this will tell you how much storage is being consumed, you cannot drill down to see what is consuming the storage. To go any further you need to jump into the Storage Account view, select Containers and then blindly browse each container looking for blobs and in particular the size of each blob to find out where this storage is actually going.


Browsing your Azure Blobs using Azure Storage Explorer.

Another option is to use Azure Storage Explorer which is now built into the Azure portal (preview).

  1. Log into the Azure portal
  2. Select or search for Storage Accounts
  3. Select the Storage Account you are interested in
  4. Select Storage Explorer on the blade on the right

From with the Azure Storage Explorer Application,  you can browse the containers of that storage account and view the size of each blob inside each container.


Azure Storage Explorer

Finding more indepth information on your Azure Blob Usage

However, you are in the same boat as before, blindly searching through Containers looking for the size of blobs not knowing where they are. This may not be an issue if you only have 2 or 3 containers with 10 or less blobs in each. But what if you have 10, 50 or more Containers and hundreds or thousands of blobs?

How would you know which Container or blob is consuming the space? In short, you can’t, at least not easily.

Even with the full blown Azure Storage Explorer, the task is quite tedious because you have to browse each individual Container in each Storage Account and get the statistics to calculate the storage consumed. That is not a fun job.

Azure Storage Consumption Overview

This is where Cloud Storage Manager gives you the easiest, quickest and best experience by far.

With Cloud Storage Manager you can instantly see how much storage each Subscription, Azure Storage Account, Container and blob is consuming. It provides you with a simple explorer like view to browse through each level.

Here you can immediately see how much storage is being consumed at every level.


Azure Storage Tree View

Azure Container Sizes

And by selecting the Container View tab on the right hand pane also gives you an instant view to see how much storage each Container in Azure is consuming.

A percentage column outlines the overall size of that container relative to its parent Storage Account.


Azure Container Contents

You can also right click on the Container you are interested in and select Jump to Container to expand and select that Azure Container on the tree pane.


Azure Blob Sizes

As you can see, the Container has been selected on the Storage Tree pane on the left. And on the right you can select the BLOB view tab to see the blobs in that container and of course the size of each blob. The Blob view is sorted based on size, so if even if you have hundreds or thousands of blobs, you will see which ones are taking up the most space first.


Cloud Storage Manager Blobs Tab

Azure Blob Information

You can also right click on the Blob to get additional options, such as delete the blob, change the object tier or view the blob properties.


Cloud Storage Manager Azure Storage Blobs Tab

As you can see, Cloud Storage Manager is easily the quickest and simplest way to know where your Azure storage is being consumed, and its all for FREE.

Cloud Storage Manager

Gain insights into your Azure Storage with our FREE to use Tool.
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Conclusion. Which tool is right for you?

Azure portal is a web-based interface provided by Microsoft Azure to manage cloud resources and services. Although it provides a user-friendly interface for managing storage accounts, it has some limitations. The Azure portal may not provide an intuitive way to manage large amounts of data, as it requires multiple clicks and navigation to access information, and can be slow when working with a large amount of data. Additionally, the Azure portal does not provide the ability to compare data across storage accounts or view data usage trends over time.

Azure Storage Explorer is a standalone app that enables users to manage their Azure storage accounts. While it provides a more comprehensive view of storage accounts compared to the Azure portal, it still has limitations. For example, it does not provide the ability to monitor data usage in real-time, or set alerts for when storage thresholds are reached. Additionally, it does not provide the ability to automate data management tasks such as moving data to lower-cost storage tiers, which can result in higher storage costs for users.

Cloud Storage Manager is a FREE tool that provides a unified view of all cloud storage resources and enables users to manage, monitor, and optimize their cloud storage usage. It provides monitoring of data usage, and also provides a cost-optimization reports that allows users to identify and eliminate unnecessary data, reducing overall storage costs. Additionally, it provides a unified view of data across multiple storage accounts, enabling users to make informed decisions about storage utilization and cost optimization.

In conclusion, while both the Azure portal and Azure Storage Explorer have their uses, Cloud Storage Manager provides a more comprehensive and cost-effective solution for managing cloud storage resources. With its real-time monitoring, alerts, and automation features, it can help users reduce storage costs and improve the overall efficiency of their cloud storage operations.

How to create an Azure storage lifecycle management policy

How to create an Azure storage lifecycle management policy

by | Aug 25, 2020 | Azure, Azure Blobs, Blob Storage, Cloud Computing, How To, Storage Accounts

How to create an Azure storage lifecycle management policy​

Whether you are using our Cloud Storage Management software to gain insights into your Azure storage environment, or are just trying to work out how to save costs within Azure, creating a lifecycle management policy is a great idea to help you save in your Azure storage costs.

Why is an Azure Lifecycle Management Policy important?

Azure Storage Lifecycle Management is a feature provided by Microsoft Azure that helps users manage the lifecycle of their data stored in Azure Blob storage. It allows users to transition their data to different storage tiers (Hot, Cool, Archive) based on their data access patterns and save costs in their Azure storage environment. The storage tiers have different costs per gigabyte of data, with the Hot tier being the most expensive and the Archive tier having the most cost savings. It is important because it enables users to save costs on their storage and manage their data effectively based on their business needs. Additionally, it helps ensure that the data is stored in the appropriate tier for its intended usage, improving performance and reducing costs.

Azure Storage Tiering Overview

Azure has three different tiers for your blob storage. These storage tiers are;

Hot – Used for frequently accessed data. Best suited for data that your user base accesses daily, think files and photos etc

Cool – Used for infrequently accessed data. Well suited for data that maybe accessed, but not that often.

Archive – Used for rarely accessed data, like backups or data that you need to keep for historical reasons.

Each of these Storage Tiers has a cost associated that Microsoft will charge you per gigabyte of data. The Hot Tier obviously being the most expensive, the Cool Tier is a little cheaper and the Archive Tier having considerable cost savings.

As an example at the time of writing this page, the cost per gigabyte in US dollars for each Tier is as below. (this may vary depending on your agreement with Microsoft)

Azure Blob Storage Costs

PREMIUM HOT COOL ARCHIVE
First 50 terabyte (TB) / month $0.15 per GB $0.0184 per GB $0.01 per GB $0.00099 per GB
Next 450 TB/month $0.15 per GB $0.0177 per GB $0.01 per GB $0.00099 per GB
Over 500 TB/month $0.15 per GB $0.0170 per GB $0.01 per GB $0.00099 per GB

As the table above shows, there are considerable savings when you move your blobs down to the lower tiers and creating an Azure Storage Lifecycle Management Policy.

Azure Blob Storage Tiering

Change your Storage Tier

Microsoft Azure provides tiering for your blob data, that you can set as the default level. (either upon creation of the storage account or at a later date). To check the default storage tiering of your storage account go to the Azure Portal, choose configuration, and then the access tier that the blobs default to in that storage account is shown.

It must be noted that only the Hot and Cool tiers can be set as the default and not the Archive tier.


Azure Storage Tiering

What are some of the benefits of creating an Azure Storage Lifecycle Management Policy?

OK, so now that you see there are some real benefits in changing the tiering of your blob storage, how do I create one you ask?

Well first off let’s look at what you will need to make sure is in place first.

Tiering of blob object storage is only available in Blob Storage and General Purpose v2 (or GPv2) accounts. If you have GPv1 storage you will need to convert that first to GPv2.

Premium storage does not provide any tiering, as this tier is for fast access using SSD based drives. (this maybe coming at a later date)

Changing tiers of storage may incur increased costs. Be very careful when applying the change to your data, as rehydrating blobs from the archive tier can be costly.

How to create your first Azure Storage Lifecycle Management Policy.

Open the Azure Portal

In your Azure portal, go to your storage account that you want the lifecycle policy to apply to and then choose Lifecycle Management.


Azure Lifecycle Management

Create a Azure Storage Lifecycle Policy Rule

 Once the right hand side of your browser has populated, choose Add Rule to start the wizard


Azure Lifecycle Management Rule

Add Lifecycle Policy Rule

Now that the new rule has shown up we need to fill in a few details. You will need to give the rule a Name and then choose what you want to happen with your object data.

As an example I have shown in the below rule that the blobs will move to cool storage after not being accessed in 90 days, then to archive storage in 180 days, then finally being deleted in 365 days.

If you are happy with what you have set, just click Review + add and Azure will go on to apply those settings to your storage account, or if you want to be granular and exclude some containers / paths then click on Next: Filter Set.


Azure Lifecycle Management New Rule

Azure Storage Lifecycle Policy Exclusions

On this page you can now exclude any containers or paths that you do not want this policy to apply to. Click Next: Review + add. 

Azure Lifecycle Management Filter

Azure Storage Lifecycle Validation

 If all goes well you should be presented with a screen as below, saying that your Validation Passed. 

Click on Add and Azure will now apply those settings to your storage account.

Azure will now go through all your Blobs and set them to the tiering and settings you have specified. 

You have successfully created an Azure Storage Lifecycle Management Policy

Azure Lifecycle Management Validation

Reduce your Azure Blob Storage Costs

Now you may ask, how do I know how much storage I’ve consumed or when were my blob files last accessed?

Easy. First run and install our Cloud Storage Manager software, then let it run a scan against your Azure Storage environments. Once the Scan has completed you can then run one of the many reports to understand and optimise your Azure Blob Storage.

Download a Free Trial and test it for yourself.

Free

Cloud Storage Manager Icon

Maximum Azure Storage limited to 30TB.

Typically for small or personal environments usually consisting of 3 or less Azure Subscriptions and consuming under 30TB of Azure Blob Storage.

Free Forever (until your Azure storage goes over 30TB).

Advanced

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Maximum Azure Storage limited to 1PB

For medium sized environments typically consisting of less than 5 Azure Subscriptions.

Yearly license subscription of $500 USD per year which includes updates and support.

Enterprise

Cloud Storage Manager Icon

Unlimited Azure Storage.

For use in large environments typically consisting of more than 10 Subscriptions and consuming more than 1PB of Azure Blob Storage.

Yearly license subscription of $1000 USD per year which includes updates and support.

Cloud Storage Manager is licensed based on the size of your Azure Subscriptions, Azure Storage Accounts, Containers and finally each Blob.

Each version has the same great functions including scheduled scans of your Azure Blob Storage and reporting.

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FAQ for Azure Lifecycle Management

What is Azure Storage Lifecycle Management?

Azure Storage Lifecycle Management is a feature that allows users to automate the transition of their data to different storage tiers or classes based on the data’s age or access patterns.

How does Azure Storage Lifecycle Management help in reducing costs?

By automatically moving data to the appropriate storage tier based on its age or access patterns, Azure Storage Lifecycle Management helps to reduce storage costs by ensuring that you are only paying for the most expensive storage tier that you actually need.

Can I still access my data after it has been transitioned to a different storage tier?

Yes, you can still access your data even after it has been transitioned to a different storage tier. The only difference is the retrieval time, which may be slower for data stored in the Archive tier compared to the Hot and Cool tiers.

Can I revert a transition made by Azure Storage Lifecycle Management?

Yes, you can revert a transition made by Azure Storage Lifecycle Management, but you may incur additional charges for moving the data back to a more expensive storage tier.

Is Azure Storage Lifecycle Management available for all Azure storage services?

Currently, Azure Storage Lifecycle Management is available for Azure Blob storage.

What are the different storage tiers that can be managed by Azure Storage Lifecycle Management?

Azure Storage Lifecycle Management allows you to manage data across four storage tiers: hot, cool, archive, and deleted. The hot tier is for frequently accessed data, the cool tier is for infrequently accessed data, the archive tier is for rarely accessed data, and the deleted tier is for data that has been marked for deletion.

How does Azure Storage Lifecycle Management work with data protection?

Azure Storage Lifecycle Management integrates with Azure data protection features such as Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery, to ensure that your data is protected even as it transitions between storage tiers.

Can I customize the transition policies for my data in Azure Storage Lifecycle Management?

Yes, you can create custom transition policies in Azure Storage Lifecycle Management that are specific to your data and your business requirements. You can specify the time-based or usage-based triggers for data transitions, and you can also set rules for data retention.

Can I track the data movement and monitor the performance of my storage infrastructure with Azure Storage Lifecycle Management?

Yes, you can use Azure Storage Lifecycle Management to monitor and track the data movement in your storage infrastructure, as well as to measure the performance of your storage tiers. You can also use Azure Monitor to set up alerts and notifications for specific events, such as data movement or storage tier changes.

Is Azure Storage Lifecycle Management supported for all types of data in Azure Storage?

Azure Storage Lifecycle Management is supported for all types of data in Azure Blob Storage, including block blobs, append blobs, and page blobs. It is not currently supported for other types of data in Azure Storage, such as files and queues.

Which storage account or storage accounts can you use lifecycle management?

The Storage Accounts that support Lifecycle Management Policies are Blob Storage Accounts that have block blobs and append blobs in general-purpose v2 and premium block blobs.

How to clone a Azure VM

How to clone a Azure VM

by | Aug 2, 2019 | Azure, Azure VM Deployment, clone, How To

How to clone a Azure VM

If you ever need to duplicate or clone your Azure VMs or perhaps even migrate your Azure VMs from Azure Service Manager (ASM) to Azure Resource Manager (ARM) you can use one of our Azure Management Tools, Azure VM Cloner (AVMC) to quickly and easily do this for you. (You can download a fully functioning trial here)

In the last blog post I showed you how you could schedule the deployment of Azure VMs. Using those same VMs and Azure Subscription I will now show you how we can clone your Azure VMs.

Why clone your Azure VM?

Use Case Description

Disaster Recovery

 In case of a disaster or outage, having a cloned VM in a different Azure region or datacenter can provide a quick failover option and ensure business continuity.

Testing and Development

 Cloning a VM can provide a safe and isolated environment for testing and development purposes without affecting the production environment.

Scaling Out

 Cloning a VM can help quickly and easily scale out an application or service by creating multiple copies of the same VM to distribute the workload.

Migrating to a New Subscription

 When migrating to a new Azure subscription, cloning a VM can help ensure that all the necessary configurations and settings are preserved.

Creating a Backup

 Cloning a VM can also serve as a backup option in case the original VM experiences any issues or failures.

Cloning an Azure Virtual Machine

Start cloning your Azure VM

Start up the Azure VM Cloner tool then click on Clone Virtual Machine in the home window


Clone Azure VM

Select the Azure VM to Clone

Next we are presented with a list of the Azure VMs you have in your subscription. Highlight one of the Virtual Machines and then click on Next.


Shutdown your Azure VM to be Cloned

Note if the VM is running you will get the following error. Best to shutdown any virtual machines within Azure that you need to clone.


Clone Azure VM running VM

Choose the Destination for your cloned Azure VM

We are next presented on some destination settings we need to migrate the cloned Azure VM to. Choose your Azure Target Subscription (you can clone your Azure VMs across subscriptions only if you have access)
Select a target Azure Resource Group and then finally the Azure Location for the VM to reside in.
Click on NEXT to continue with the cloning process.

Clone Azure VM Destination

Cloned Azure VM Destination Storage Account

Now we need to choose which Azure storage account to place the cloned Azure VM in.

Highlight the correct storage account then click on NEXT.


Clone Azure VM Storage Account

Cloned Azure VM Destination vNet

The next selection window we are presented with is the Azure Virtual Network that you would like the cloned virtual machine in.

Highlight the correct Azure vNet and again click on NEXT.  The Azure VM Cloner will read the vnet configuration before continuing.


Clone Azure VM vNet

Choose the VM Size for your cloned VM

The last configuration window before the cloning of the Azure VM kicks off is the VM sizing window. Choose an Azure VM size and give the server a name.

You can also select whether to shutdown the cloned VM on completion, Send an email to let you know once done and even convert the disks to Azure Managed Disks if they were in an Azure Storage Account before.
Click on START CLONE to continue.


Clone Azure VM Sizing

Ready to start the cloning of your Azure VM

You are now ready to proceed with the cloning process. The Cloning Warning screen informs you that may have two servers with the same SIDs and computers names after the server has been cloned, this is of course not something you want to have happen in a Production environment.

Read the warning and when you are ready to do so, check the Understood and Accepted then click on START.


Clone Azure VM Warning

Cloning process for your Azure VM

In the Console Output you can see the tasks and status of your Azure VM cloning and as seen in the Azure Portal you can see that the VM has now cloned successfully.

Now the last things you will need to do if it is a Microsoft Windows virtual machine that you cloned, is to login with its local Administrator account and password and possibly run a Sysprep to change the server name and SSID before you rejoin it to the domain.


Clone Azure VM Azure Portal

Download a Trial of Azure VM Cloner today.

To trial our Azure VM Cloner, fill in the form below to get access to download the trial software.


The cost of our Azure VM Cloner is $500 USD.


 

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Download a trial of the Azure VM Cloner and see all of our Azure Management Tools.

Cloning an Azure VM is an important process that can save you a lot of time and effort. With Azure VM Cloner (AVMC), you can easily and quickly clone your Azure VMs, ensuring that you have an exact replica of the original virtual machine. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can clone your Azure VMs with ease, without any errors or issues.