New Microsoft Azure Blob Storage Features Launched in Preview

Over the course of the last week Microsoft made two separate announcements about features for their Azure Blog Storage service that have begun to roll out in Preview.

The first one from last week was for Azure Archive Blob Storage and Blob-Level Tiering and the goal of these features is to help companies reduce their storage costs in the Azure cloud.

Azure Archive Blob Storage and Blob-Level Tiering

This service is intended to deliver durable, highly available, and secure cloud storage for archived data that is not accessed very often but has flexible options for access when needed.

The Archive tier joins the previously announced Hot and Cold access tiers with these features:

-- Cost-effectiveness: Archive access tier is our lowest priced storage offering. Customers with long-term storage which is rarely accessed can take advantage of this. For more details on regional preview pricing, see Azure Storage Pricing.

-- Seamless Integration: Customers use the same familiar operations on blobs in the Archive tier as on blobs in the Hot and Cool access tiers. This will enable customers to easily integrate the new access tier into their applications.

-- Availability: The Archive access tier will provide the same 99% availability SLA (at General Availability (GA)) offered by the Cool access tier.

-- Durability: All access tiers including Archive are designed to offer the same high durability that you have come to expect from Azure Storage with the same data replication options available today.

-- Security: All data in the Archive access tier is automatically encrypted at rest.

Another addition with this new service is the ability for customers to choose the tier for their Blob Storage in order to manage costs based on the need for accessing that stored data. This avoids the movement of data between accounts and makes for easier end user management.

The announcement blog post for this, written by Kumail Hussain, an Azure Senior Program Manager, provides details on how to get started with this preview.

Azure Blob Storage Events

This announcement, provided by Chris Brooks, the Principal Program Manager for Microsoft Azure Storage, was just made yesterday.

This service will enable applications to deal with the removal or creation of blobs on Azure in a much simpler manner by eliminating the need for complex coding or costly services to poll for that information.

It integrates with Azure Functions, Azure Logic Apps, and your own custom solutions instead.

You may want to go back and read the Azure Event grid announcement because that service preview is what implements the Blob Storage Events capability.

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