Common Azure storage for web site accessible from more VMs

Question

Hi Dear,

What storage of a web site (dynamic content PHP/mySQL) would you use if you'd need to access it from more virtual machines / scale set? Azure disk can be accessed only from one VM, Azure files do not use chmod/chown filesystem functions (can be set only on the whole directory level and not individual files) and blob storage I do not think it's the right way to store dynamic site content.

Currently, all the data can be stored on one/more disk/s operated by 1 VM but when the traffic will go to the skies I need a build a solution for more VMs to access one website content.

Or is the Azure WEB Apps the only solution suitable for this?

Thanks and regards,

Josef

Answer 1

First up, if your going to be hosting a web application that you need to scale up and down then by far the simplest way to do this is using a web app, as you have no need to manage the underlying VM's, so I would first consider whether that will fit your needs.

If you have to use VM's, then using Blob storage is going to be the simplest and easiest option, what is it that you don't feel is suitable? It would help answering this to have a better understanding of your requirements.

There are a number of other storage options you could consider. You mention Azure files, buy default you are correct, it does not support file or directory level ACL's, however there is a preview feature that allows you to do that.

Alternatively you could look at Azure NetApp files. This is more expensive, but does provide full ACL's.

You could also look at hosting your own VM based file server.