There are a bunch of ways to manually sync blobs inside an Azure Storage account to a local file-system folder.
One way might be to use AzCopy to download all blobs of a container, and do it for all containers in the account. Of course this can't be scaled, and is only good for one-time operation, or an ad-hoc snapshot.
Another option is to use Blob events, and manually sync each blob once with the local file-system folder. This method is not available in all regions yet, and can't be trusted for long-term operation, since if for any reason they get out of sync, then they remain out of sync.
Is there a way to mirror an entire Azure Storage account, to a local folder?
Here are several ways you could follow:
The way of doing this is especially fast if few files has been added/updated/deleted. If many is added/updated/deleted it is still fast, but uploading/downloadig files to/from the blob will be the main time factor. The algorithm auditor going to describe was developed by me when he was implementing a non-live-editing Window Azure deployment model for Composite C1.
Refer to fast recursive local folder to/from azure blob.
Also, you could install GoodSync to sync files between their local and the cloud.
And you will need to install Gladinet Cloud Desktop 3.0 and mount your Azure Blob Storage account.When you click on the "Add New Cloud Sync Folder" link above, you will see this dialog.
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I want to automate the transfer of files from a website not hosted in Azure to my client’s premises.
I am considering having an API on the website send the files to Azure Blob Storage , and then having another API running at the client site, download them.
Both would make use of the Azure storage API, which I like because it is easy to implement.
The files do not need to stay in Azure and can be deleted from storage once they are downloaded.
However I am wondering if there is a faster way.
Should I be using Hot Blob Storage or File Storage perhaps?
I looked at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/storage-blob-storage-tiers but am still unclear as to the fastest method for my use case.
I suggest you can use File share, which can be mapped to local as a mapped drive and can be easily and faster operation like read / delete.
If you choose code only, from the comparison of blob and file, they can be up to Up to 60 MiB/s, I cannot see which is faster. There is a Azure Storage Data Movement Library , which is designed for high-performance uploading, downloading and copying Azure Storage Blob and File, you can use it for your purpose.
I would recommend blob storage for this application. Logic apps can also be used to automate this pipeline based on timer triggers or some other trigger.
I have a problem that I have been wracking my brain about and figured I would need some perspective and insight from people who are a lot more knowledgeable about this.
What I have currently: Web based application hosted in azure uses azure blob store to store files that are generated as part of data import processes. We have a seperate application that extends the original web application that allows users to upload files and these files are currently also stored in azure blob store.
Where I am trying to go: I have a requirement that wants the ability to map network file shares on a users laptop and be able to access these files that currently reside in the blob.
Since Azure blob does not support SMB I have no way of actually doing this with a blob store.
I could use Azure files in conjunction with a File Server running the sync agent. However, this requires a lot of work both in terms of refactoring, setup and some custom service that add remove permissions on the file server.
I'm wondering if there is a service or a piece of software that exists in the market currently that allows me to continue using blob and perhaps sync the blob files into a file server that can then allow users to access and open files using windows file explorer? I found one that looks like an open source project but only does a one way sync from the blob to the file share. Ideally I'd like to find a solution that does a two way sync like azure file sync does.
Any thoughts and ideas will be appreciated.
Since the max number of blob containers, file shares is unlimited. Per my understanding, you could leverage the following approaches:
Migrate the data from blob storage to azure file share instead of blob storage, then the subsequent file store is azure file storage.
Note: Currently you must specify storage account key when mounting file shares, details you could follow this feedback. I recommend that you'd better do not map network file shares on a users laptop.
You could still use the blob storage, and you could create each blob container for each user and generate each blob container SAS token for your users, then the users could leverage Azure Storage Explorer to manage their blob files or use AzCopy and other command tools to download the blob files into their laptop file system.
Note: For security consideration, you could combine a stored access policy with a SAS, in order to revoke the permissions, you just need to invalidate the related access policy instead of regenerating the account key. Details you could follow Controlling a SAS with a stored access policy and Shared Access Signatures, Part 2: Create and use a SAS with Blob storage.
I currently have a Rackspace Cloud Server that I'd like to migrate to an Azure Virtual Machine. I recently got an MSDN subscription which gives me a certain level of hosting via Azure at no cost, where I'm currently paying for that level of service with Rackspace.
However, one of the nice things about Rackspace is that I can schedule nightly/weekly backups of the VM image. Is there any mechanism for doing this on Azure? I'm worried about protecting against corruption of the database (i.e. what if someone were to run an UPDATE statement and forget the WHERE clause). Is there a mechanism for this with Azure?
I know the VMs are stored as .VHD files in my local Azure storage, but the VM image is 127 gigs. Downloading that nightly even with FIOS internet isn't really going to fly as a solution.
You can perform an asynchronous blob copy to make a physical copy of a vhd. See here for REST API details. This operation is very fast within the same data center (maybe a few seconds?). You don't need to make raw REST calls though: There's a method already implemented in the Azure cross-platform command line interface, available here. The command is:
azure vm disk upload
You can also take blob snapshots, and return to a previous snapshot later. A snapshot is read-only (which you can copy from later) and takes up no space initially. However, as storage pages are changed, the snapshot grows.
One question though: why such a large VM image? Are you storing OS + data on same vhd? If so, it may make more sense to mount a separate Azure Drive (also stored in VHD in blob storage) to store data, and make independent copies / snapshots.
How would I write to a tmp/temp directory in windows azure website? I can write to a blob, but i'm using an NPM that requires me to give it file names so that it can directly write to those filenames.
Are you using Cloud Services (PaaS) or Virtual Machines (IaaS).
If PaaS, look at Windows Azure Local Storage. This option gives you up to 250gb of disk space per core. Its a great location for temporary storage of information in a way that traditional apps will be familiar with. However, its not persistent so if you put anything there you need to make sure will be available if the VM instance gets repaved, then copy it to Blob storage. Also, this storage is specific to a given role instance. So if you have two instances of the same role, they each have their own local storage buckets.
Alternatively, you can use Azure Drive, which allows you to keep the information persisted, but still doesn't allow multiple parallel writes.
If IaaS, then you can just mount a data disk to the VM and write to it directly. Data disks are already persisted to blob storage so there's little risk of data loss.
Just from my understanding and please correct me if anything wrong.
In Windows Azure Web Site, the content of your website will be stored in blob storage and mounted as a drive, which will be used for all instances your web site is using. And since it's in blob storage it's persistent. So if you need the local file system I think you can use the folders under your web site root path. But I don't think you can use the system tmp or temp folder.
I have a WCF service hosted on Windows Azure as a "cloud service." When the service starts, it needs to populate data from files/disk to its memory so it is accessed fast (cached in other words). Right now I'm using like C:\Documents\Filestoprocess folder so that the WCF calls the folder and populates data data in that folder in its memory. I have like 5,000 small files. How do I do this in Azure? Is there a folder path that I can call within the WCF so that the WCF calls these files and opens each files and saves each data in the files? I'm not really looking for complicated Blob access through network using bandwidth. I'm looking for simple disk I/O access to these files from the WCF "cloud service" that is running on its own public web address.
You should try to use a cloud storage service to store data, as if you write to the local file system it can get destroyed on a restart of the service or recycling of the service.
You can look into using the azure drive service, which is like creating a disk dive. It is on top of blob storage.
But if you really want to write and read data on the local file system check out this blog post http://blog.codingoutloud.com/2011/06/12/azure-faq-can-i-write-to-the-file-system-on-windows-azure/
It talks about setting up your service definition to allow writing to the local file system.
Depending on the size of your instances you'll get a non-presistent disk where you can store this kind of temporary data. The minimum is 20GB for an extra small instance. You shouldn't access the disk directly, but you need to use a local resource instead which you can configure in your service definition file or in Visual Studio (double click your Web / Worker Role).
This storage is non-persistent, this means if you delete your deployment, if you decrease the number of instances, in case of hardware problems, ... you loose all data saved here. If you want to persist your files you should use blob storage instead. But in your case, where you need the files as some kind of caching mechanism, local resources are perfect.
And if your goal is to cache data you might want to take a look at the caching features included in Windows Azure: Caching in Windows Azure
Blob access is not complex. In fact, you could do a single download of a zip file from blob storage to local disk, unzip it, then prime your wcf service from those 5,000 small files.
Check out this msdn page documenting DownloadBlobToFile(). The essential parts:
CloudBlobClient blobClient =
new CloudBlobClient(blobEndpoint, new StorageCredentialsAccountAndKey(accountName, accountKey));
// Return a reference to the blob.
CloudBlob blob = blobClient.GetBlobReference("mycontainer/myblob.txt");
// Download the blob to a local file.
blob.DownloadToFile("c:\\mylocalblob.txt");
Now: I don't agree with saving to the root folder on C:. Rather, you should grab some local storage (easily configurable). Once you configure local storage in your role configuration, just ask the role environment for it, and ask for root path:
var localResource = RoleEnvironment.GetLocalResource("mylocalstorage");
var rootPath = localResource.RootPath;
Note: As #KingPancake mentioned, you could use an Azure drive. However: remember that an Azure drive can only be writeable by one instance. You'd need to make additional snapshots for your other instances. I think it's much simpler for you to go with a simple blob, copy your files down (either as single zip or individual files), and go from there.
You mentioned concern with network+bandwidth. You don't pay for bandwidth within the same data center. Also: It's extremely fast: 100Mbps per core. So even with a Small instance, you'll have your files copied down very quickly, moreso when you go to larger instance sizes.
One last thought: The only other ways to gain access to your 5,000 files, without using blob storage or Azure Drives (which are mounted as vhd's in blob storage) would be to either download the files from an external source or bundle them with your Windows Azure package (and then they'd show up in your app's folder, under whatever subfolder you stuck them in). Bundling has two downsides:
Longer time to upload your deployment package due to added size
Inability to change any of the individual files without redeploying the package.
By storing in a blob, you can easily change one (or all) of your small files without redeploying your code - you'd just need to signal it to either re-read from blob storage or restart the instances so they automatically download the new files.