Microsoft Azure Object Storage Reviews

I have been working with this solution for more than one year, focusing on infrastructure. My goal was to provide tools to developers and my team to help them utilize the Azure platform effectively. 

Specifically, I aimed to deploy products like Kubernetes servers on Azure, which includes blob storage, file storage, and table storage for my clients.

It's similar to S3 for AWS. The ability to store everything inside Blob or Object storage and use it for archiving data is beneficial. For example, you can transform data from relational databases, flatten it, and store it in Object storage to save space within the databases. 

If I want to save data and do not require legacy access, it's a good solution, for instance, to migrate archives from databases to Object storage. This can also be used for business intelligence purposes. Having a storage solution for data makes it the best place to store it. Azure has its own solution for StatsQ Web Apps.

We mainly focus on Microsoft Azure Data Lake. We use Microsoft Azure Stream Analytics, but not on a wide level.

We have multiple use cases for Microsoft Azure Object Storage. We are storing streamline data on Microsoft Azure Blob Object Storage. Our media files for AI/ML models, data, and PDF files are uploaded to Blob Storage due to their elasticity features. Previously, our data was stored in our data center with SAN, but due to elastic capability, we moved to S3, and then due to organization group level changes, we moved from S3 to Microsoft Azure.

In one scenario, we integrated Microsoft Azure Blob with our IoT device where our related blog is capturing on the blog. When I generated a SAS token for the blog, I forgot to create a policy, and the default expiry date was set to 60 seconds. It did not prompt anything regarding the SAS token generation of the blog, which was cumbersome. It would be easier if I created a policy for the user level and then added access policy for the user of the blog. For direct creation of SAS tokens with default seven-day validation, it did not prompt whether data was uploading or downloading correctly. This created issues regarding alert notifications, as I wanted to configure alert notifications over the blog for different containers and alert mechanisms.

Object Storage and Geo-redundant Storage are features I appreciate most.

Hot and Cool storage options allow us to implement different budgeting systems. When creating our data budgeting, we can implement archive mode for less frequently used data. While retrieving data from archive mode takes some time, it provides a cost-effective storage solution.

For security solutions in Microsoft Azure, I particularly appreciate Microsoft Azure AI foundation. Since I work mostly with AI/ML, data piping, data integrations, and ETL tools, these features are valuable. Additionally, O365 Copilot features are very beneficial.

I have approximately three to four years of experience with Microsoft Azure Object Storage for solutioning purposes.

The benefits of using Microsoft Azure Object Storage include being able to keep all unstructured data in the storage, allowing users to access it from anywhere by configuring the storage explorer in their system, based on the policies we apply during the implementation.

Microsoft Azure Object Storage has positively impacted our customers' organizations primarily by enabling them to move from file shares to cloud solutions. When talking about storage accounts, customers utilize Azure file as a replica of the file server, allowing them to access file shares or storage accounts from their systems, making it easy to use while automatically syncing data with the cloud.

We have two types of storage that we are primarily using: Blob storage and file storage. File storage is mostly used for structured data that is consumable by users directly, such as file reports and Excel files. Blob Storage is mainly for binary data, bigger objects, and unorganized data that we manage.

Due to the ease Microsoft Azure Object Storage provides, we don't need to procure the hardware. It gives scalability, even though it is manual, so we don't worry about procuring the hardware again when we need to increase the size. It helps save costs.

We use it for a lot of different use cases. Besides general backup and data retention, we use it for various analytics purposes. We build custom analytics solutions and use Blob Storage for configuration and OTA software updates for each solution. 

On the consulting side with AWS, we store custom objects related to training in S3 buckets. All of this is managed and controlled through relational databases.

We use it more for colder storage compared to Cosmos DB or DocumentDB.

We design and build custom solutions. We mostly use Azure for our cloud and go straight through. If we don't use the customer's network, we use cell routers.

I design and build industrial IoT equipment, so that's part of what we do.

Cost is the most valuable feature. Otherwise, I'd be using a NoSQL database. 

Blob Storage is also much better suited for large files like videos and anything in the multi-gigabyte range. Different services access it in different ways, but none are particularly harder than the others.

I think it is not an improvement from the tool, but we were able to arrange our layers on the data lake using objects and a best practice for speeding them up or for making partitions in objects to protect against security vulnerabilities and increase the performance of data access. I don't think there are improvements in our company from the use of the tool. It is just the best practice that we are using in our company.

Microsoft Azure Object Storage makes some valuable compliance certifications for healthcare, and we need to obey the compliance part. In the healthcare sector, we have HIPAA, and in Brazil, we have LDPD compliance, which is similar to GDPR compliance. When we have to make proof of data access, proof of deletion, or datasheet reading, we can do it all easily with Azure.

The main use case that I have in my company is to store some scanned documents from our customers.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the tool's price since it is not expensive. The tools that support using Azure Blob Storage, like the open source storage accounts like Azure Storage Explorer, are really easy to use and user-friendly. When it comes to life cycle management, you have many pricing tiers associated with storage costs. You can use policies to change between the pricing tires, and it is really easy to use the policies.

We use the solution on multiple levels. We deploy at the product level, production, and internal use cases.

The most valuable features of the solution are its performance and stability.