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.
Related
I am a total newbie to Azure WebApps and storage, I need some clarification/confirmation. The main thing to take note of, my application (described below) requires a folder hierarchy. Blob is out of the question and file share doesn't allow anonymous access unless I use Shared Access Signature (SAS).
Am I understanding Azure storage correctly, it's either you fit into the Azure storage model or you don't?
Can anyone advise how I can achieve what's required by the CMS application as described below by using Blobs?
The only option I see is to find a way to change the CMS application so that it always has the SAS in the URL to every file it requests from storage in order to serve content on my Web App? If so, is it a problem if I set my SAS to expire sometime in the distant future?
https://<appname>.file.core.windows.net/instance1/site1/file1.jpg?<SAS>
Problem with using Blob
So far my understanding is that Blob storage doesn't allow "sub folders" as it's a container that holds unstructured data, therefore I'm unable to use this based on my application (described below) as it requires folder structure.
The problem with using File Share
File share seemed perfect as it allows for folder hierarchy, naturally that's what I've used.
However, no anonymous access is allowed for files stored in file storage, the access needs to be authorised. One way of authorising the access is to create a SAS on a file/share level with Read permission and then using that SAS URL to access the file.
Cannot access Windows azure file storage document
My application
I've created a Linux Web App running open source CMS application. This application allows creation of multiple websites, for each website's content such as images, docs, multimedia to be stored on a file server. These files are then served to the website via a defined URL.
The CMS application allows for a settings of the location where it should save its files, this would be a folder on the file server. It then creates a new sub folder for every site it hosts in that location.
Example folder hierarchy
/instance1
/site1
/file1
/file2
/site2
/file1
/file2
Am I understanding Azure storage correctly, it's either you fit into
the Azure storage model or you don't?
You can use Azure Storage Model for your CMS Application. You can use either Blob Storage or File Share
Can anyone advise how I can achieve what's required by the CMS
application as described below by using Blobs?
You can use Data Lake Gen 2 storage account if you want to use Azure Blob Storage.
Data Lake Gen 2 storage enables hierarchical namespace so that you can use subfolders in the Blob Storage as per your requirements
Problem with using Blob
Blob Storage allows subfolders if we use Data Lake Gen 2 storage account. You can enable Blob Public Anonymous access
The problem with using File Share
Azure File Share supports but does not allow public anonymous access. You can use Azure Managed Identity (System-Assigned) for your web app to access the Azure File Share.
Then your application would be able to access the Azure File Share without SAS token
The issue of not having real folders in a blob storage shouldn't be any issue for your use case. Just because it doesn't have your traditional folders doesn't mean it can't serve content on e.g. instance1/site1/file1. That's still possible but the instance1/site1/ will just be part of the name of the blob.
Tools like the Azure Portal or Storage Explorer will actually show folders by using the delimiter / and querying data that appears to be inside a folder by using the path as prefix.
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.
Would like to know whether it is a feasible to move the folder ( with files ) from Azure blob/file storage to webapp root.
Scenario: Would like to replace gallery of images folder used by static HTML site for gallery section weekly using powershell.
Request suggestions or alternatives as not sure how to handle this in azure and schedule swapping of folders between blob and ftp.
You can use the BlobTrigger trigger with WebJob deployed on the same web app and copy the files from blob storage to the local file system.
Would like to replace gallery of images folder used by static HTML site for gallery section weekly using powershell.
Please try to store the images in Azure blob directly. We can access the images in Azure blob with 'Full public read access' mode or 'Public read access for blobs only' mode. Refer to this article for more details. Then we can use Scheduler Webjob to replace the images directly.
It wasn't clear to me exactly what you are trying to do. If you have a legacy app / adoption of FTP you can mount an FTP server on Azure File Storage. Or alternatively Blob Storage can be used for public data as described above. If you want a simple tool for interacting with Blob Storage then you can try Storage Explorer.
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
I'm trying to find the best setup for my website on Windows Azure.
I have a front-end and a back-end website made in ASP.NET MVC4.
Both websites must use a shared same images. Font-end for displaying, back-end for CRUD actions. The image files are stored in a folder in the front-end web application and the url's to those images are stored in a mysql database.
Currenty i have 2 Windows Azure websites, but i can't access the images from the back-end website because there are stored in a folder on the front-end application?
What's the best setup and cheapest for this type of application?
2 websites with shared BLOB storage ?
A cloud service containing 2 webroles (front- and back-end) ?
... ?
Thanks
First you should not use web application's folder beside temporary operations. Since Azure means multi-computer environment, resource (image) won't be available for requester if you use more than one instance (machine)
I would go on 2 blob container. (not 2 blob storage account)
We do not have IP based restriction on blobs yet so as long as you don't share those addresses you will be fine. If you really need to have restriction you can use Shared Access Policy which you can find more details on Use a Stored Access Policy also you should review this one too Restrict Access to Containers and Blobs
I think that using a shared blob storage account is the right direction.
Using a local folder is not a good idea - on web sites and cloud services these are not persistent and you may lose your files. Either way - this is not a scalable solutions - if you'll add additional instances in the future you will not have access to the files.
Using blob storage will give you a location that is accessible from both locations and indeed from the client's browser directly.
You do not specify whether the images need to be accessed securely from the front end or not, if not that blob storage is particularly useful as they can be served from a public container on azure storage directly.