Use the Storage explorer in Azure to manage,create Blob Containers, File shares and queues

The Storage explorer desktop tool is available now in the azure storage accounts section in azure portal.

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From here we have options to manage,create Blob Containers, File shares and queues.

New Blob Containers can be created, deleted and managed –

 

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Further we can upload and delete blobs.

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We can further drill down and manage properties.

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These are the options variable in the properties

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Same way the file-share can be created deleted and managed.

Also, we have an option to upload files, connect to VM and download from here.

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The Storage Queues also can be created and managed.

There is option to add message, dequeue and clear the queue.

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Below is the small summary on azure storage accounts blobs, file shares, and queues.

What is Azure Blob Storage?

Azure blob storage is Microsoft objects storage solution.
This storage type is enhanced to store large amount of unstructured data like text or binary.
The items stored on blob storage can be accessed from anywhere in the world via http/https. This can be invoked through azure functions (cli, powershell,etc..,) and libraries are available for multiple languages.

Once created they have a service end point like below.This will be the connection string that can be used in our API’s to access the data in the azure storage account.

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There are 3 types of blobs-

Block Blobs – Can be used to store data of types text and binary.It supports data to store up to 4.7 TB. They store data in blocks type and these data can be managed individually.

Append Blobs – They are similar like block blocks except they are enhanced for append operations. This is best suited for recurring tasks operations example like logging data from virtual machines.

Page Blobs – The data are stored and accessed randomly in page blocks and data can be stored up to 8 TB in size.

So the blobs are stored in below order

Storage Account – Containers – Blobs

A storage account can hold multiple containers and a containers in turn can hold unlimited blobs in them.

What is Azure File Storage?
This is a service from azure through which we can create a fileshare in the azure cloud using the standard Server message block (SMB) protocol. This option will be really useful for migrating local fileshares to azure fastly with very minimal cost.

Once the file storage is created we will have the connection string like below

We can use them to connect to either to windows or Linux.

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The connection string will have the username and password also.

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Since its a SMB it uses port 445, so make sure the port 445 is opened in our local network firewall.We will not be able to connect if port 445 is not allowed from our local network.

What is Azure Storage Queue Service?

This is a service offered by azure where we can store large volumes of messages and they can be accessed from anywhere in the world via http/https. A single message can go up to 64 KB in size. Using this we can provide persistent messaging within and between services. Using this we can store unlimited messages even in same queue.

Once created we will get the end point like below.REST-based operation  can be initiated  for GET/PUT/PEEK operations.

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