I have a large web app with around 20 gigabytes of images and mp3s. It currently uses standard file IO libraries to read and write the sounds and mp3s. I'd like to migrate it to Azure, but I have concerns about storing that much content. Is it possible to use an App Service to host the web app and some sort of storage mounted to the root of the site for the assets without rewritting all of the file access to use blobs or some other api?
If you look at the App Service plans here, you will notice that with Standard and better plans, you get storage more than 20GB (50GB+) so it is certainly possible to take your app as is and run it in Azure. However it is not recommended practice.
What you should do is make use of Azure Blob Storage for storing media content. You will need to make some changes as you can't simply mount Azure Blob Storage as a network drive.
There's Azure Files as well that can be mounted as a network drive but as of today you can't mount a File Share as a network drive in an Azure WebApp. You would need to deploy your application in either a Virtual Machine (IaaS) or rewrite your application to run as a Cloud Service.
Related
I am designing a web application and it needs to be in the Azure web app. The app is focused on managing files, so it needs to upload files and store them.
As is a cloud app, I suppose that I am not able to create a directory in the web app service. My question is if I have to use the benefits of Azure and create a Storage Account and if this is the solution, What will be the best storage solution, Blob or File?
Thank you in advance.
Best wishes
Container is a Blob Storage, which is a great option for programmable storage, where our program can read and write to the storage account.
If we don't want to allow websites and the public to access the files, we can choose the below options.
Blob Storage Containers can contain any binary files/ binary large objects, there is no ordering and hierarchy, we can have a virtual folder structure.
Containers are usually programmed to share files to access using Shared Access Signature and Access Policy
I suppose that I am not able to create a directory in the web app service
Azure Files is more useful for mounting a file share to a server and multiple servers can mount the same file share. It can have a quota.
File share has a Directory Structure, we can create Directories and Subdirectories in a Hierarchical manner compared to Containers.
The Connect option in the File Share gives you details on how to mount drive onto a Windows/Linux machine.
Use file storage if you need the shared drive protocol, if not we can design the applications and use blob storage.
As per your requirement, if you want to create Directories you can choose AzureFile Share.
Reference link Azure Blob and Fileshare storage mentioned by #deherman-MSFT
As the title says, I'm looking for a way to access an azure files share (in preview) directly from an azure website. I cannot use any REST API or anything like this and I was looking for the possibility of mounting a SMB share directly into the website (through the new portal or any other way).
I found the following links, from which I understand that this is still under review (http://feedback.azure.com/forums/169385-web-apps-formerly-websites/suggestions/6084609-allow-map-azure-file-share-microsoft-azure-file-s) and also a SO question (Can the new Azure File Service be used from Azure WebSites?) that doesn't answer my question.
To be honest and for the sake of giving more details, my scenario is pretty simple - I have some websites and also some virtual machines that should access the files from the azure files service. Regarding the VM, the approach is pretty straight forward and easy but regarding the WebSites, I don't find any way at this moment.
On the other hand, regardless of the answer to the above question, does it make sense to (or do I have the possibility to) enable CDN over an Azure Files Share?
Thank you very much.
As of today, no single technology will serve your purpose. You can't use File Service as you don't have the capability to mount a share in an Azure Website as well as it is not suited for streaming purposes (all access to files there need to be authorized and there's no concept of Shared Access Signature in File Service today).
I guess, you would have to pick one of the two technologies (Blob Service and File Service) and make some compromises to make it work in both Websites and Virtual Machines.
Assuming you go with File Service, then you can mount them in the Virtual Machine and do the processing on the files there. On the website front, you would need to use Storage Client library to download the relevant files in some folder in your website and stream those files from there.
Assuming you go with Blob Service, then you can simply stream them in your website directly from blob storage (no need to have those files in your website). In the Virtual Machine, when you need to process those files (blobs), you would simply download them to your VM for processing and then re-upload them in blob storage.
Does it make sense to (or do I have the possibility to) enable CDN
over an Azure Files Share?
Currently it is not possible to serve Azure File Service files via CDN.
We are migrating our PHP website to Azure Cloud Web Service (Web Role).
Currently the website saves user submitted image files to the filesystem via drive letter access. These images are then served via a url e.g. content.example.com.
What options have I got id I want persistent file storage on an Azure Cloud Web Service.
I am currently assessing BLOB Storage for this.
Thanks
Blob storage is the right answer. Although you could convert your images in base64 and save them in Azure Sql as well, it is really not recommended.
Check: Azure, best way to store and deploy static content (e.g. images/css)? or Where to store things like user pictures using Azure? Blob Storage?
One of the options to reduce re-writing of your application is to mount blob-storage as a network drive. Here is some information how to do it: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/2014/05/12/introducing-microsoft-azure-file-service.aspx
Mounting of the drives can be done on Web-Role start-up task and can be scripted.
We are looking at migrating some sites from Azure Cloud Services to Azure Websites (as that is how things seem to be going). Cloud services obviously we were told specifically didn't preserve the file system state as they were re-deployed on machine failure.
I am assuming websites are built on Blob storage. Is there a page from Microsoft that confirms if I upload files to the site via FTP etc. that they are persistent, backed up and preserved as part of the site? If they are persistent what are their SLAs? Is there any inbuilt function to backup local files? What happens on instance scale out to files on local file system? Can I get access to the underlying blob storage?
If they are standard is there any issues with letting users upload files in a hosting sense? I appreciate risks of what users shouldn't upload. If files are persistent is it sill best practice to offload to blob storage?
Yes, files that are part of your Web Site are persisted. You can access them via FTP.
You can use the backup service (currently in preview) to schedule backups to blob storage.
The Azure Web Sites SLA is available here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39303
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.