AZURE Storage

Storage

Storage is a means of computing technology to save digital data within a data storage device. It is a mechanism that enables a computer to retain data on a temporary or permanent basis. Storage is often confused with the term 'memory,' but actually, they have different meanings in computing. Memory is the short-term location of temporary data, while storage devices help store data long-term. Memory is also known as 'volatile' storage, whereas the long-term storage options are secondary or nonvolatile storage. Storage devices include different types of drives, including magnetic, flash, optical, and virtual drives.

Data storage is an essential part of any organization. Alignment with storage, safety, and data security is just as important. This is why storage solutions form an integral part of an organization. Also, storage solutions offer improved operating costs and scalability, which is an essential aspect for any growing organization. Depending on the storage solution you pick for your organization, you also get the best features, such as reduced physical hardware and remote access. All of this, without compromising the security of the data stored in these storage devices.

There are many storage alternatives available, and each of them offers different features and advantages. Based on the cost of storage, the security, and the reliability it provides, you can choose a storage solution that best suits your business.

There are two broad categories of storage – direct-attached storage and network-attached storage. Let's have a look at each of these categories:

Direct Attached Storage (DAS)

The name itself indicates that these storage solutions include data storage devices that are physically connected to the computer. This storage is accessible to a single machine only at any given time. Some of the most common Direct Attached Storage options are hard drives, solid-state drives (SSD), CD/DVD drives, and more.

Network Attached Storage (NAS)

Network Attached Storage solutions are not attached to any given device. Instead, these storage solutions allow multiple machines to share storage over a network. A network is built with various hard drives and other storage devices in a RAID configuration. One of the main benefits of NAS is that it can centralize data and thus, improve collaboration and communication. Thanks to this seamless network, data can be shared amongst connected machines easily. NAS also allows you to set access controls, which means only those users with access can share or modify data on the network. NAS solutions are typically costlier compared to DAS devices, but they prove to be very cost-effective in the long run. Let's have a look at the different network-attached storage options available:

SSD Flash Drive Arrays

Flash storage is a data storage technology based on high-speed electrically programmable memory. It can write data and perform I/O operations in a flash, which is why it came to be known as 'flash storage'. It uses a nonvolatile memory called flash memory.?Flash drives deliver accelerated application performance as well as improved data center economies. Flash drives are a future-proof infrastructure that offers immense scalability – this helps you expand your business without shelling out any extra costs.

Hybrid Flash Arrays

Hybrid flash arrays blend flash memory drives and hard drives that bring forth the best of both. They offer reasonable performance costs, low startup expenditure, and quick access to data as required. Compared to flash drives, these are a bit expensive, but with the hybrid flash drives' features, they are worth the investment.

Hybrid Cloud Storage

Cost-effective, flexible, and scalable, this storage solution is secure and seamlessly helps continue business operations. Hybrid cloud storage frequently backs up data and offers the long-term archive option. It is perfect for businesses that have just started and are looking to scale up operations soon. As the hybrid setup combines the cloud and on-premises storage, it brings in an added layer of security to ensure that the data is already protected and available.

Backup Software

Backup software is a computer program designed specifically to perform a backup of data in your network. These programs create exact copies of files, databases, or entire computers – these copies are convenient in case of situations that lead to data loss. Backups can help restore this data without disrupting the organization's workflow.

Security is one of the essential aspects of backups. As organizations grow, they become increasingly susceptible to different, dynamic threats. This is why maintaining a backup that has foolproof security is exceptionally crucial for any organization.

Cloud Storage

Cloud-based storage solutions have become increasingly popular among different organizations these days. A cloud-based storage setup allows you to virtually store data and conveniently access it anywhere. With this storage solution, you wouldn't require a local computer or external hard disk to access your organization's data – you could do it on the go, too.

Virtualization of storage is the future, so organizations need to look for modern, cost-effective, and reliable storage solutions such as the cloud. Virtual storage systems are less complicated, time-saving, and very accessible, too.

Azure VM storage

Ultra Disk

Azure ultra disks are the highest-performing storage option for Azure virtual machines (VMs). You can change the performance parameters of an ultra disk without having to restart your VMs. Ultra disks are suited for data-intensive workloads such as SAP HANA, top-tier databases, and transaction-heavy workloads.

Ultra disks must be used as data disks and can only be created as empty disks. Microsoft recommends using premium solid-state drives (SSDs) as operating system (OS) disks.

Ultra disk performance

Ultra disks feature a flexible performance configuration model that allows you to independently configure IOPS and throughput before and after you provision the disk. Ultra disks come in several fixed sizes, ranging from 4 GiB to 64 TiB.

Premium SSDs

Azure premium SSDs deliver high-performance and low-latency disk support for virtual machines (VMs) with input/output (IO)-intensive workloads. To take advantage of the speed and performance of premium SSDs, you can migrate existing VM disks to premium SSDs. Premium SSDs are suitable for mission-critical production applications, but you can use them only with compatible VM series.

Standard SSDs

Azure Standard SSDs are optimized for workloads that need consistent performance at lower IOPS levels. They're an excellent choice for customers with varying workloads supported by on-premises hard disk drive (HDD) solutions. Standard SSDs deliver better availability, consistency, reliability, and latency compared to standard HDDs. Standard SSDs are suitable for web servers, low IOPS application servers, lightly used enterprise applications, and non-production workloads. Like standard HDDs, traditional SSDs are available on all Azure VMs.

Standard HDDs

Azure standard HDDs deliver reliable, low-cost disk support for VMs running latency-tolerant workloads. With traditional storage, your data is stored on HDDs, and performance may vary more widely than SSD-based disks. Standard HDDs are designed to deliver write latencies of less than 10 ms and read latencies of less than 20 ms for most IO operations. Actual performance may vary depending on IO size and workload pattern, however. When working with VMs, you can use standard HDD disks for dev/test scenarios and less critical workloads. Traditional HDDs are available in all Azure regions and can be used with all Azure VMs.

Azure Storage Services

The Azure Storage platform is Microsoft's cloud storage solution for modern data storage scenarios. Core storage services offer a massively scalable object store for data objects, disk storage for Azure virtual machines (VMs), a file system service for the cloud, a messaging store for reliable messaging, and a NoSQL store.

Blob storage

Azure Blob storage is Microsoft's object storage solution for the cloud. Blob storage is optimized for storing massive amounts of unstructured data, such as text or binary data.

Azure Files

Azure Files enables you to set up highly available network file shares that can be accessed using the standard Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. That means multiple VMs can share the same files with read and write access. You can also read the files using the REST interface or the storage client libraries.

One thing that distinguishes Azure Files from files on a corporate file share is that you can access the files from anywhere in the world using a URL that points to the file and includes a shared access signature (SAS) token. You can generate SAS tokens; they allow specific access to a private asset for a specific amount of time.

Queue storage

The Azure Queue service is used to store and retrieve messages. Queue messages can be up to 64 KB in size, and a queue can contain millions. Queues are generally used to store lists of messages to be processed asynchronously.

Table storage

Azure Table storage is now part of Azure Cosmos DB. To see Azure Table storage documentation, see the Azure Table Storage Overview. In addition to the existing Azure Table storage service, a new Azure Cosmos DB Table API offering provides throughput-optimized tables, global distribution, and automatic secondary indexes.?

Summing Up

Storage is indeed an essential part of every organization. It helps keep track of all the data in your organization and boosts efficiency and performance. Usage of storage solutions enables you to store data systematically, which makes it easy to cross-check and audit records easily.

With so many benefits of storage solutions, businesses should invest in good quality, reliable alternatives to store their data. These days you have many cost-effective and excellent storage options, which you can make the most of for the benefit of your organization.