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Best Security Practices for Azure Storage Accounts

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Azure Storage Accounts are essential components in many cloud architectures, and securing them is critical to protect data and prevent unauthorized access. Below are some of the best security practices for Azure Storage Accounts, along with practical examples: 1. Enable Soft Delete for Blob Storage Soft delete helps protect your data from accidental or malicious deletions by retaining deleted data for a configurable retention period. This feature applies to blobs, containers, and file shares. Example: Suppose your organization stores critical customer data in blob storage. Someone accidentally deletes a blob or a container. With soft delete enabled and a retention period of 30 days, the deleted blob can be restored without data loss. Implementation: Go to your Storage Account in the Azure Portal > Select Data Protection > Enable Soft delete for blobs and set the retention period. Benefit: Protects data from accidental or intentional deletion and allows recovery ...

Azure Managed Disk and Azure Disk in a Storage Account

  Azure Managed Disk and Azure Disk in a Storage Account are both options for persistent storage in Azure, but they serve different purposes, have different management overheads, and are designed for different types of workloads. Let me explain the differences with an example and use case study. 1. Azure Managed Disk: Azure Managed Disks are a simplified disk management service where Azure manages the storage account and the infrastructure. You just specify the size and type of disk (Standard HDD, Standard SSD, or Premium SSD), and Azure takes care of the rest, including scalability, reliability, and availability. Example: Let's say you have a virtual machine (VM) that runs a mission-critical application, such as a SQL Server database . You want to ensure that the disk performance is high and you don’t want to manage the underlying storage. You choose a Premium SSD Managed Disk for your VM. Performance and Scalability : Managed Disks offer the ability to scale to 50,000 ...

Azure Table Storage

 Azure Table Storage is a NoSQL key-value store that's part of the Azure Storage suite, designed to store large amounts of structured, non-relational data. It's highly scalable, cost-effective, and ideal for certain scenarios where relational database capabilities (such as joins, foreign keys, etc.) are not required. Here’s a detailed use case to explain how Azure Table Storage can be used effectively: Use Case: IoT Device Telemetry Data Storage Scenario Imagine you’re running a large Internet of Things (IoT) solution where hundreds of thousands of devices (like temperature sensors, smart meters, or wearable devices) send telemetry data (such as temperature readings, humidity levels, and timestamp data) every few seconds or minutes. This results in a massive amount of data being generated continuously. Why Use Azure Table Storage? For this use case, Azure Table Storage is a perfect solution for several reasons: High Volume of Structured Data : IoT ...

Azure Blob Storage and Azure File Storage

  Azure Storage offers several storage services designed for different types of data and use cases. Two of the main storage options are Azure Blob Storage and Azure File Storage . Here's a breakdown of both: 1. Azure Blob Storage Blob Storage is designed for storing large amounts of unstructured data like text or binary data (such as images, video, backups, logs, etc.). Types of Blobs : Block Blobs : Used for storing files (e.g., documents, images, videos). They are made up of blocks of data, and it’s optimized for large data uploads. Append Blobs : Ideal for append-only operations like logging. New data is added to the end of the blob. Page Blobs : Used for virtual hard disks (VHDs), common in scenarios like virtual machines. Page blobs support random access reads and writes. Key Use Cases : Storing backups and archives. Serving images, videos, and other content to users directly from the cl...

Case Study: (Banking Industry) Data Residency, High availability, and DR in Azure

  Scenario: Banking Industry Banks handle sensitive financial data that is subject to stringent data residency requirements, ensuring that data is stored and processed only within specific geographical boundaries. They also need high availability (HA) to ensure that banking services (e.g., online transactions) are always up and running, as well as disaster recovery (DR) to recover quickly in case of failures or disasters. Use Case: Cross-country Banking Application A large international bank operates in multiple countries and must comply with regulations that require customer data to reside in the country of origin . They want to provide seamless online banking services while ensuring high availability and disaster recovery. Solution Using Azure 1. Azure Region Selection for Data Sovereignty To comply with data residency and sovereignty laws, the bank should carefully select Azure Regions within each country or compliance zone. Azure provides geo-redundant regions that are pai...