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Storage Quotas and Core Allocation on Windows Azure

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This has been documented as part of other posts (cf. footnote #1), here it is presented in FAQ format, focusing on the quotas and core allocation.

What is the quota for storing data within Windows Azure storage?

  • For a given subscription, during the CTP, each token grants you 2 storage accounts, and each storage account can contain up to 50GB of data
  • For a given subscription, after the commercial launch, you will be able to create up to 5 storage accounts (cf. footnote #2), each of which can contain 100TB of data, i.e. any combination of blobs (block blobs or page blobs), containers, queues, or table data.

How is the Windows Azure storage data broken down?

Reminder: Those are the quotas after commercial launch.

  • Blobs:
    • 200GB for block blobs (64KB min, 4MB max block size)
    • 64MB is the limit for a single blob before you need to use blocks
    • 1TB for page blobs
  • Tables:
    • 252 user defined properties
    • Entity <= 1MB, limited to supported types or in case of binary/string <= 64KB
  • Queues:
    • Messages <= 8K

The overarching quota is that you have 100TB per storage account and how you choose to use that amount is up to you in any combination of the above.

Are there any limits on the amount of transactions both entering into the data center and usage of queues / blobs?

A given storage account is meant to be able to process up to a few thousand transactions per second, and a few hundred megabytes per second, the exact limit will depend upon the application and services should benchmark their application.

This applies across everything for the storage account Tables, blobs, queues.

What is the limit on the number of deployments, roles and instances?

  • CTP, before Dec. 10th, 2009:
    • Each token grants you 1 hosted service,
    • with 2 deployment slots (staging and production),
    • each of which with up to 5 roles (any combination of web and worker roles),
    • each of which with up to 2 role instances.
    • No weighed VMs. No limit on number of cores.
  • CTP, after Dec. 10th, 2009:
    • Same as above, plus weighed VMs and max. 8 cores for one subscription.
    • Read more here.
  • Commercial Launch, after Jan. 4th 2010:
    • For a given subscription, with the default settings, you will have 6 hosted services (cf. footnote #3),
    • with 2 deployment slots each (staging and production),
    • each of which with up to 5 roles (any combination of web and worker roles),
    • There will be no more limits on the number of role instances, but there will be a default quota of 20 cores per subscription, across all services, roles and role instances (cf. footnote #2).

 Footnotes:

(1) References:

(2) Quota increase:

  • If you need more than the default quota allocation, you will need to contact Microsoft Online support to initiate a credit check in order to get more resources. The same process applies to storage accounts and hosted services. More details on the Windows Azure Support page.

  • [Addendum on 1/8/2010] Direct link to call support is currently located in the top right corner of the support page. If you decide to call support to get a quota increase, have your Subscription ID readily available.

    To find your Subscription ID:

    • go to the Windows Azure developer portal,
    • sign in, select a project,
    • go to the Account tab,
    • the Sub ID will be displayed in the Support Info module at the bottom of the page.

(3) Number of hosted service per subscription:

  • The limit on the number of hosted services per subscription was changed on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 from 20 to 6. Read more here.