Describe Azure Storage Accounts Flashcards
1
Q
What is an Azure Storage account?
A
- provides a unique namespace for your azure storage data that is accessible from anywhere in the world
- data in the account is secure, highly available and massively scalable
2
Q
What are the types of storage accounts?
A
- Standard general purpose V2
- Premium block blobs
- Premium file shares
- Premium page blobs
3
Q
How do endpoints work with azure storage accounts?
A
- each account has a unique namespace in azure for data
- combination of the unique account name and storage service endpoint forms the endpoints for storage account
- account names must be 3-24 chars with only numbers and lowercase letters
4
Q
In general terms how does Azure provide storage redundancy?
A
- stores multiple copies so its protected from hardware failures, network or power outages and natural disasters
- replicated 3 times in the primary region
- ensures that the storage account meets its availability and durability targets even in the face of failures
5
Q
What is locally redundant storage (LRS)?
A
- redundancy in primary region
- replaces data 3 times within a single data center
provides 11 nines of durability of objects over a given year (99.999999999%) - lowest cost option
- least durability
- protects against hardware failures but not against whole datacenter failures
- ZRS, GRS and GZRS are recommended by Microsoft
6
Q
What is zone redundant storage (ZRS)?
A
- redundancy in the primary region
- for availability zone-enabled regions, ZRS replicates data synchronously across 3 zones in the primary region
- 12 nines of durability
- data is accessible for both read and write ops even if a zone becomes unavailable
- If zone becomes unavailable azure undertakes networking updates
- recommends using ZRS in primary regions that require high availability
- recommended for restricting replication of data within a country or region to meet with gov compliance
7
Q
In general terms what is redundancy in the secondary region?
A
- copy data to a secondary region that is hundreds of miles away from the primary region
- data is durable even in the event of a catastrophic failure
- when creating account you select primary region, the secondary region is based on region pairs
- by default data in secondary region isnt available for read or write access unless there’s a failover to the secondary region. In which case the secondary becomes primary
8
Q
What is geo-redundant storage (GRS)?
A
-redundancy in secondary region
- copies data synchronously 3 times within a single physical location using LRS and then asynchronously to another single location in the secondary region (region-pair) using LRS
- 16 nines of durability
9
Q
What is geo-zone redundant storage (GZRS)?
A
- redundancy in secondary region
- combines high availability provided by redundancy across availability zones, with protection from regional outages provided by geo-replication
- data is copied across 3 availability zones in the primary region and is also replicated to a secondary geographic region using LRS
- recommended for apps requiring max consistency, durability and availability, performance and resilience for disaster recovery
- 16 nines of durability
10
Q
How does read access to data in a secondary region work?
A
- if you enable read access to the secondary region your data is always available even when the primary region is running optimally
11
Q
What is RPO?
A
- due to asynchronous copy of data to secondary region a failure that affects primary region may result in data loss if the primary region cant be recovered
- the interval between the most recent writes to the primary region and the last write to the secondary region is known as the recovery point objective (RPO)
- indicates point in time to which data can be recovered
12
Q
What are the benefits of azure storage?
A
- Durable and highly available; data redundancy and replication in cause of failures such as natural disasters or hardware
- Secure; encrypted
- Scalable; meets demands and needs
- Managed; azure handles hardware maintenance, updates and crit issues
- Accessible; accessible from anywhere in the world over HTTP or HTTPS, Microsoft provides client libraries for azure storage in a variety of languages
13
Q
What is blob storage?
A
- object storage
- stores mass amounts of data such as text or binary
- unstructured so no restrictions on data type
- reached from anywhere with internet
- arent limited to common file formats; doesn’t require devs to think about or manage disks
14
Q
What is blob storage best used for?
A
- serving images or docs directly to browser
- Storing files for distributed access
- Streaming video and audio
- Storing data for backup and restore, disaster recovery, and archiving
- Storing data for analysis by an on-premises or Azure-hosted service
15
Q
what is the blob storage hot access tier?
A
- optimised for storing data that is accessed frequently (e.g. images for website)
16
Q
what is blob storage cool access tier?
A
- optimised for data that is infrequently accessed and stored for at least 30 data (e.g. invoices for customers)
17
Q
what is blob storage archive access tier?
A
- data that is rarely accessed and stored for at least 180 days, with flexible latency requirements (long-term backups)
18
Q
what considerations apply to different access tiers?
A
- only hot and cool tiers can be set at the account level, the archive tier isn’t available at this level
- all 3 tiers can be set at the blob level during or after upload
- data in the cool tier can tolerate lower availability but requires high durability, retrieval latency and throughput similar to hot data, high access costs but low storage costs
-archive stores data offline and offers lowest storage cost but highest cost to access
19
Q
what is azure files?
A
- fully managed file shares in the cloud that are accessible via Server Message Block or Network File System
- can be mounted by cloud or on-premises deployments
- Cross-platform via SMB but only linus and Mac with NFS
20
Q
What are azure files key benefits?
A
- shared access; seamlessly replace on-prem file shares with azure file shares without worrying about application compatibility
- fully managed
- scripting and tooling
- resiliency
- familiar programmability
21
Q
What is queue storage?
A
- stores large number of messages
- access them from anywhere in the world via auth calls using HTTP and HTTPS
- each message can be 64KB in size
- used to create a backlog of work to process asynchronously
- can be combined with azure functions
22
Q
what is disk storage?
A
- managed disks
- block level volumes managed by azure for use with VMs
- the same as physical disks but virtualised
- offer greater resiliency and availability than physical disks
- all you have to do is provision the disk, azure does the rest
23
Q
What is azure mirgrate?
A
- service that helps you migrate from an on-premises environment to the cloud
- functions as a hub to help manage the assessment of migration of your on-prem datacenter to azure
24
Q
what does azure migrate provide?
A
- unified migration platform; single portal to start run and track migration
- range of tools
- assessment and migration; can access and migrate your on-prem infrastructure to azure
25
Q
what tools does azure migrate provide?
A
- discovery and assessment
- server migration
- assistant
- DB migration service
- web app migration assistant
- data box
26
Q
what is Azure Data box?
A
- physical migration service that helps transfer large amounts of data in quick, inexpensive and reliable way
- you get shipped a propiertary data box device that has a max usable capacity of 80 terabytes
- transported to and from your datacenter by region carrier in a rugged case
- entire process tracked end-to-end by the data box service in portal
27
Q
what are examples of when azure data box would be used to import data to azure?
A
- onetime migration to azure
- moving a media library from offline tapes into azure to create an online media library
- migrating your VM farm, SQL server and apps to azure
28
Q
what are examples of when azure data box would be used to export data from azure?
A
- disaster recovery
- security requirements; due to gov compliance
- migrate back to on prem or another cloud provider
29
Q
What is AzCopy?
A
- Command line utility that you can use to copy blobs or files to or from your storage account
- you can upload, download and copy files and even synch files between storage accounts
- can work with other cloud providers to help move files
30
Q
what is azure storage explorer?
A
- standalone app that provides graphical interface to manage files and blobs in your azure storage account
- windows, macOS and Linux
- uses AzCopy on the backend
- you can upload to and download from Azure or move between storage accounts
31
Q
What is azure file sync?
A
- tool that lets you centralise file shares in Azure files and keep the flexibility, performance and compatibility of a windows file server
- like turning windows file server into a mini content delivery network
- once installed on local win server it will auto stay bi-directionaly synched with your files in azure
32
Q
What does azure file sync enable?
A
- use any protocol thats available on win server to access your data locally
- replace a failed local server by installing azure file sync on a new server in the same datacenter
- configure cloud tiering so the most frequently accesses files are replicated locally, while infrequently accessed files are kept in the cloud until requested
