The company needs storage for their offices and departments. This content is private to the company and shouldn’t be shared without consent. This storage requires high availability if there’s a regional outage. The company wants to use this storage to back up the public website.

Architecture diagram

Diagram with one storage account and two blob containers

Skilling tasks

  • Create a storage account for the company private documents.
  • Configure redundancy for the storage account.
  • Configure a shared access signature so partners have restricted access to a file.
  • Back up the public website storage.
  • Implement lifecycle management to move content to the cool tier.

Exercise instructions

Note: These instruction require you to have completed Lab 02a, Provide storage for internal documents.

Create a storage account and configure high availability.

  1. Create a storage account for the internal private company documents.
    • In the portal, search for and select Storage accounts.
    • Select + Create.
    • Select the Resource group created in the previous lab.
    • Set the Storage account name to private. Add an identifier to the name to ensure the name is unique.
    • Select Review, and then Create the storage account.
    • Wait for the storage account to deploy, and then select Go to resource.

  2. This storage requires high availability if there’s a regional outage. Read access in the secondary region is not required. Configure the appropriate level of redundancy.

    • In the storage account, in the Data management section, select the Redundancy blade.
    • Ensure Geo-redundant storage (GRS) is selected.
    • Refresh the page.
    • Review the primary and secondary location information.
    • Save your changes.

Create a storage container, upload a file, and restrict access to the file.

  1. Create a private storage container for the corporate data.

    • In the storage account, in the Data storage section, select the Containers blade.
    • Select + Container.
    • Ensure the Name of the container is private.
    • Ensure the Public access level is Private (no anonymous access).
    • As you have time, review the Advanced settings, but take the defaults.
    • Select Create.

  2. For testing, upload a file to the private container. he type of file doesn’t matter. A small image or text file is a good choice. Test to ensure the file isn’t publically accessible.

    • Select the container.
    • Select Upload.
    • Browse to files and select a file.
    • Upload the file.
    • Select the uploaded file.
    • On the Overview tab, copy the URL.
    • Paste the URL into a new browser tab.
    • Verify the file doesn’t display and you receive an error.

  3. An external partner requires read and write access to the file for at least the next 24 hours. Configure and test a shared access signature (SAS). Learn more about Shared Access Signatures.

    • Select your uploaded blob file and move to the Generate SAS tab.
    • In the Permissions drop-down, ensure the partner has only Read permissions.
    • Verify the Start and expiry date/time is for the next 24 hours.
    • Select Generate SAS token and URL.
    • Copy the Blob SAS URL to a new browser tab.
    • Verify you can access the file. If you have uploaded an image file it will display in the browser. Other file types will be downloaded.

Configure storage access tiers and content replication.

  1. To save on costs, after 30 days, move blobs from the hot tier to the cool tier. Learn more how manage the Azure Blob storage lifecycle.

    • Return to the storage account.
    • In the Overview section, notice the Default access tier is set to Hot.
    • In the Data management section, select the Lifecycle management blade.
    • Select Add rule.
    • Set the Rule name to movetocool.
    • Set the Rule scope to Apply rule to all blobs in the storage account.
    • Select Next.
    • Ensure Last modified is selected.
    • Set More than (days ago) to 30.
    • In the Then drop-down select Move to cool storage.
    • As you have time, review other lifecycle options in the drop-down.
    • Add the rule.

  2. The public website files need to be backed up to another storage account.[Learn more about object replication.

    • In your storage account, create a new container called backup. Use the default values. Refer back to Lab 02a if you need detailed instructions.
    • Navigate to your publicwebsite storage account. This storage account was created in the previous exercise.
      • In the Data management section, select the Object replication blade.
      • Select Create replication rules.
      • Set the Destination storage account to the private storage account.
      • Set the Source container to public and the Destination container to backup.
      • Create the replication rule.
    • Optionally, as you have time, upload a file to the public container. Return to the private storage account and refresh the backup container. Within a few minutes your public website file will appear in the backup folder.

Note: For additional practice complete the Configure Azure blob storage module. The module has an interactive lab simulation where you can get more practice creating blob storage.

Extend your learning with Copilot

Copilot can assist you in your learning journey. Copilot can provide basic technical information, high-level steps, pros and cons, troubleshooting help, usage cases, coding examples, and much more. To access Copilot, open an Edge browser and choose Copilot (top right). Take a few minutes to try these prompts.

  • What security features are available to protect Azure storage?
  • What is an Azure SAS and how is it used?

Learn more with self-paced training

Key takeaways

Congratulations on completing the lab. Here are the main takeaways for this lab.

  • Azure storage has many data protection features including: encryption, access control, network security, monitoring, and alerts.
  • A shared access signature (SAS) provides secure delegated access to resources in your storage account. With a SAS, you have granular control over how a client can access your data.
  • Azure Blob Storage lifecycle management offers a rule-based policy that you can use to transition blob data to the appropriate access tiers or to expire data at the end of the data lifecycle.
  • Object replication asynchronously copies block blobs between a source storage account and a destination account.