Explore Azure Storage

In this exercise you’ll provision an Azure Storage account in your Azure subscription, and explore the various ways you can use it to store data.

This lab will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

Before you start

You’ll need an Azure subscription in which you have administrative-level access.

Provision an Azure Storage account

The first step in using Azure Storage is to provision an Azure Storage account in your Azure subscription.

  1. If you haven’t already done so, sign into the Azure portal.
  2. On the Azure portal home page, select ＋ Create a resource from the upper left-hand corner and search for Storage account. Then in the resulting Storage account page, select Create.
  3. Enter the following values on the Create a storage account page:
    • Subscription: Select your Azure subscription.
    • Resource group: Create a new resource group with a name of your choice.
    • Storage account name: Enter a unique name for your storage account using lower-case letters and numbers.
    • Region: Select any available location.
    • Performance: Standard
    • Redundancy: Locally-redundant storage (LRS)
  4. Select Next: Advanced > and view the advanced configuration options. In particular, note that this is where you can enable hierarchical namespace to support Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2. Leave this option unselected (you’ll enable it later), and then select Next: Networking > to view the networking options for your storage account.
  5. Select Next: Data protection > and then in the Recovery section, deselect all of the Enable soft delete… options. These options retain deleted files for subsequent recovery, but can cause issues later when you enable hierarchical namespace.
  6. Continue through the remaining Next > pages without changing any of the default settings, and then on the Review page, wait for your selections to be validated and select Create to create your Azure Storage account.
  7. Wait for deployment to complete. Then go to the resource that was deployed.

Explore blob storage

Now that you have an Azure Storage account, you can create a container for blob data.

  1. Download the product1.json JSON file from https://aka.ms/product1.json and save it on your computer (you can save it in any folder - you’ll upload it to blob storage later).

    If the JSON file is displayed in your browser, save the page as product1.json.

  2. In the Azure portal page for your storage container, on the left side, in the Data storage section, select Containers.
  3. In the Containers page, select ＋ Container and add a new container named data with a public access level of Private (no anonymous access).
  4. When the data container has been created, verify that it’s listed in the Containers page.
  5. In the pane on the left side, in the top section, select Storage browser. This page provides a browser-based interface that you can use to work with the data in your storage account.
  6. In the storage browser page, select Blob containers and verify that your data container is listed.
  7. Select the data container, and note that it’s empty.
  8. Select ＋ Add Directory and read the information about folders before creating a new directory named products.
  9. In storage browser, verify that the current view shows the contents of the products folder you just created - observe that the “breadcrumbs” at the top of the page reflect the path Blob containers > data > products.

  10. In the breadcrumbs, select data to switch to the data container, and note that it does not contain a folder named products.

    Folders in blob storage are virtual, and only exist as part of the path of a blob. Since the products folder contained no blobs, it isn’t really there!

  11. Use the ⤒ Upload button to open the Upload blob panel.
  12. In the Upload blob panel, select the product1.json file you saved on your local computer previously. Then in the Advanced section, in the Upload to folder box, enter product_data and select the Upload button.
  13. Close the Upload blob panel if it’s still open, and verify that a product_data virtual folder has been created in the data container.
  14. Select the product_data folder and verify that it contains the product1.json blob you uploaded.
  15. On the left side, in the Data storage section, select Containers.
  16. Open the data container, and verify that the product_data folder you created is listed.
  17. Select the ‧‧‧ icon at the right-end of the folder, and note that it doesn’t display any options. Folders in a flat namespace blob container are virtual, and can’t be managed.
  18. Use the X icon at the top right in the data page to close the page and return to the Containers page.

Explore Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2

Azure Data Lake Store Gen2 support enables you to use hierarchical folders to organize and manage access to blobs. It also enables you to use Azure blob storage to host distributed file systems for common big data analytics platforms.

  1. Download the product2.json JSON file from https://aka.ms/product2.json and save it on your computer in the same folder where you downloaded product1.json previously - you’ll upload it to blob storage later).
  2. In the Azure portal page for your storage account, on the left side, scroll down to the Settings section, and select Data Lake Gen2 upgrade.
  3. In the Data Lake Gen2 upgrade page, expand and complete each step to upgrade your storage account to enable hierarchical namespace and support Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2. This may take some time.
  4. When the upgrade is complete, in the pane on the left side, in the top section, select Storage browser and navigate back to the root of your data blob container, which still contains the product_data folder.
  5. Select the product_data folder, and verify it still contains the product1.json file you uploaded previously.
  6. Use the ⤒ Upload button to open the Upload blob panel.
  7. In the Upload blob panel, select the product2.json file you saved on your local computer. Then select the Upload button.
  8. Close the Upload blob panel if it’s still open, and verify that a product_data folder now contains the product2.json file.
  9. On the left side, in the Data storage section, select Containers.
  10. Open the data container, and verify that the product_data folder you created is listed.
  11. Select the ‧‧‧ icon at the right-end of the folder, and note that with hierarchical namespace enabled, you can perform configuration tasks at the folder-level; including renaming folders and setting permissions.
  12. Use the X icon at the top right in the data page to close the page and return to the Containers page.

Explore Azure Files

Azure Files provides a way to create cloud-based file shares.

  1. In the Azure portal page for your storage container, on the left side, in the Data storage section, select File shares.
  2. In the File shares page, select ＋ File share and add a new file share named files using the Transaction optimized tier.
  3. In the File shares, open your new files share.
  4. At the top of the page, select Connect. Then in the Connect pane, note that there are tabs for common operating systems (Windows, Linux, and macOS) that contain scripts you can run to connect to the shared folder from a client computer.
  5. Close the Connect pane and then close the files page to return to the File shares page for your Azure storage account.

Explore Azure Tables

Azure Tables provide a key/value store for applications that need to store data values, but don’t need the full functionality and structure of a relational database.

  1. In the Azure portal page for your storage container, on the left side, in the Data storage section, select Tables.
  2. On the Tables page, select ＋ Table and create a new table named products.
  3. After the products table has been created, in the pane on the left side, in the top section, select Storage browser.
  4. In storage explorer, select Tables and verify that the products table is listed.
  5. Select the products table.
  6. In the product page, select ＋ Add entity.
  7. In the Add entity panel, enter the following key values:
    • PartitionKey: 1
    • RowKey: 1

  8. Select Add property, and create a new property with the following values:

    Property name Type Value
    Name String Widget

  9. Add a second property with the following values:

    Property name Type Value
    Price Double 2.99
  10. Select Insert to insert a row for the new entity into the table.
  11. In storage browser, verify that a row has been added to the products table, and that a Timestamp column has been created to indicate when the row was last modified.

  12. Add another entity to the products table with the following properties:

    Property name Type Value
    PartitionKey String 1
    RowKey String 2
    Name String Kniknak
    Price Double 1.99
    Discontinued Boolean true

  13. After inserting the new entity, verify that a row containing the discontinued product is shown in the table.

    You have manually entered data into the table using the storage browser interface. In a real scenario, application developers can use the Azure Storage Table API to build applications that read and write values to tables, making it a cost effective and scalable solution for NoSQL storage.

Tip: If you’ve finished exploring Azure Storage, you can delete the resource group that you created in this exercise.