We currently have Window service to process Inbound/outbound files.
In Bound files we read data and perform some calculations and store data in Database.
Out Bound files we generate data from the database.
We want to migrate to azure now. I have following questions .
1) what is the best way to store files in azure (Blob or File Share in azure) . We have only ".pdf,.txt,.xlsx" formats no videos
2) Which process is better to process files - WebJobs, Virtual Machine and install window service , Azure Batch Jobs, azure kubernetes service,Service Fabric.
Please some can help me on this.
Thanks
How are you receiving the files API, FTP or some other way? There are a ton of details that are needed to really answer this, but here are my thoughts.
Blob storage would be more cost effective. You only need to use a file share if you want to be able to map a network drive from a VM.
If processing one file would complete in less than 10 minutes I would look at Azure functions for that. If you’re processing thousands of files per day Azure functions would be expensive so I would look at running them on an App Service on VMs or moving to Service Fabric.
If you have a web site that’s used to upload the files and you’re already using Azure App service then you could use Web Jobs.
Related
I am building an application that will process uploaded video. Each uploaded video will be trimmed into multiple shorter parts and all the cuts will be concatenated to create a highlight of the original file. All the processing is done with ffmpeg.
I am using Azure File Storage, to upload the videos and be able to access them via Samba layer.
I also have an Azure VM where I mounted the shared folders.
What is the best approach on the worker?
Should I build a console app and run it as a windows server inside an azure VM ?
Is there another way of doing things?
I am looking for a way that can be scaled up in production.
If there another way of doing everything I described above?
If you want scaling then host it in your VM as a Windows Service is not the best solution. You can use Azure Batch for that. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/batch/
I also recommend a looking to Azure Media Services: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/media-services/
I have a web app that is hosted in Azure; one of it's functionalities is to be able to make a few cuts from the video(generate 2 or 3 small videos of 5-10 seconds from a larger video).
The videos are persisted in Azure Blob Storage.
How do you suggest to accomplish this in the Azure environment?
The actual cutting of the videos will be initiated by a web job. I'm also concerned about the pricing(within the Azure environment), I'm taking into account the possibility of high traffic.
Any feedback is appreciated.
Thank you.
Assuming you have video-cutting code that operates on files through normal I/O: You'd need to download the video file from blob, process it via code (or whatever library you've employed), and then store the result back in blob storage. You cannot reference a blob directly with normal standard IO libraries.
If, however, videos are stored in Azure File storage (which is an SMB layer on top of blob storage, then you will be able to directly manipulate your video files.
Web Jobs run within an App Service (just like Web Apps), so you have access to a certain amount of local disk space (depending on App Service tier) for use. You should have no problem temporarily storing a video file within your web app's disk space, for editing operations.
You asked about cost: Again, assuming you're talking about running code within a Web Job (app service), you're just paying for whatever App Service tier you've chosen.
How you actually do those edit operations is entirely up to you (language, library, etc).
Azure Blob Storage is simply an object store which stores the data. It does not have the capability you're looking for.
Azure Media Service however is the service you should look into. The media served by this service makes use of Azure Blob Storage.
For editing video, may I suggest you take a look at Video Editor Plugin for Azure Media Player. You can read more about this plugin here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/blog/video-editor-plugin/. You can also try it out here: http://ampdemo.azureedge.net/amp_editor.html.
I have an old legacy application built on .NET remoting, and transferring data via XML via with FTP.
Esentially, a CRM system is sending XML files to a directory on the web server, which has a windows service that uses a filewatcher to process the incoming XML file, updating the database.
Similarly, changes on the web application serialize down into an XML file into an out folder, that the CRM polls via FTP every 5 minutes.
Trying to map the best services to convert this to for Azure.
You could use Azure Blobs or Azure Files for this.
Azure Blobs: This is the lowest cost option, while still providing high throughput. However, note that Azure Blobs do not have File Watcher functionality, so you would have to poll the directory every few minutes to check for a new file. If you delete files after processing them, then this is really easy - all you have to do is list and see if there are any files. If you want to retain the files, then you might have to do more, since the file list will get big over time. Let me know if this is the case and I can suggest some options.
Azure Files: This is an SMB share that you can mount from a VM in the same region. This will map pretty closely to your exising filesystem based code, including FileWatcher. However, note that Azure Files can only be mounted by a VM in the same region.
I'm new to Azure, and a little confused about blob storage. I have a need for clients to access via FTP / SFTP to push and pull files (XML, CSV, EDI, etc). The pushed files are read in by a .net application and written to a database. As I understand, we would use a VM role to create a FTP / SFTP server, a worker role to execute the .net code, SQL Storage for the DB and Blob storage for the files.
Am I correct in this assumption first, and second can a VM role attach a storage blob for writing and reading files and can a worker role attach to the same storage blob to read and write files as well.
Sample:
client pushed xml file to VM via FTP. VM writes XML file to storage. Worker role reads file, processes it and writes contents to db.
Is my thinking correct or am I missing the boat?
Thanks
Given Azure has an array of services so you have a few options. One important thing to keep in mind with Azure is that your worker roles, which are simply Windows Server 2008 without IIS installed, are very flexible so there is a lot you can do with them – this includes writing your own FTP server and being able to host it via a worker role VMs. The FTP to Azure Blob Storage Bridge (on CodePlex) solution is an example of this.
In addition, you could use a web role (which is the same as a worker role but with IIS enabled) to do the same - so rather than rolling your own FTP server you can use IIS. A visual guide to setting IIS up to run as an FTP server in Azure can be found on ITQ.
I’d recommend doing some further reading to determine which is the better option of the two. Also have a think about you requirements as this may influence your approach, i.e. scaling, bandwidth, costs, your preferred deployment model etc.
As far as storing the files goes you can certainly use Blob Storage. If you have no need for a relational database in your system then you could skip using SQL Azure altogether (in which case the web role solution referenced above won’t be of much use) – but again that comes down to your particular requirements.
The official Windows Azure website is a good source of knowledge, especially if you’re getting started, so do take the time to look through some of the pertinent documentation.
I'm currenlty using Azure Blob to store files, and upload/download from ASP.Net Application hosted outside of Azure. (I do not have Web Role and Worker Role.)
Is it possible to zip multiple files into one zip file within Azure Blob before downloading?
Thanks in advance!
THe only way to achieve this would be to do it by using a WIndows Azure Compute Role in the cloud. You obviously wouldn't want to do it on your on-prem servers as you'd round-trip the files twice.
One approach you might consider would be to build a download 'client' in Silverlight. This could handle the communications to blob stgorage and pull down the blobs (maybe in parallel) and then create the zip client side for saving.
But the short answer is this is not possible using WIndows Azure storage alone.