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.
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.
We have an existing site that uses Media folder of Orchard to store images, and being used heavily in web pages. Now we want to share the Media folder to be shared across two different Web Apps(one is production site and the other is a Staging).
In some of the cases where content developer adds an image to site, it is actually stored on the file system in the production, but we miss these images in our Mirror site, so we have to do a manual copy.
Currently we are thinking to store the media files in Azure blob storage, so that I can share the images between Production and Staging, had anyone that? if yes, please share your thoughts
Any other ideas?
You need to use the Microsoft Azure Media Storage module to enable storing the assets in Azure Blobs.
There is a setup process for this described in docs.
The connection string will happily work shared between multiple projects.
If you have tenants then they can have their own isolated Storage accounts as well (and therefore their own custom domains).
When you enable it though it won't automatically copy the existing assets over to your Azure Blob Storage. I think there is a tool called AzCopy which you can use to move files in and out of cloud storage.
FYI although it is a kind of CDN, by default Azure Blob Storage is just stored in one data center, replicated 3 times. There is actually a different product offering on Azure for a true CDN if you want it to be replicated to points around the world to speed up asset delivery for global users but that doesn't seem to be what you're looking for based on your original question.
Sharing a blob storage with media between production and staging just works.
I regularly copy my production site to my local machine and run the site locally and see all images.
Maybe watch out that you only add images add the production site, not sure which references there are to the file in the Orchard Database.
Have a look in the database, or just try it out and let us know.
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 have a solution which allows our customers to upload SCORM (http://scorm.com/scorm-explained/) packages which are basically mini websites, just html pages and a predefined javascript interface which allows the packages to talk to our site. This all works fine on a self hosted IIS machine as we build up a folder structure of each SCORM module within the website root and can allow the user to open each one and complete the course.
However these can be quite large, containing multiple videos, etc. and while on a self hosted machine we can place the site on a large hard drive how would this work if we wanted to migrate the solution to azure cloud services. I have read in several places the site must be stateless and the VM can be re-imaged at any time, does that mean that we shouldn't store anything in the folder structure that wasn't part of the original package? Is there a way to configure a shared permanent folder for our websites to use?
In a word BlobStorage!
As you quite rightly point out, Azure VMs are stateless so you need a single, persisted repository for your data / file, and blob storage easily fits the bill.
Without further information on precise requirements or how you explicitly need to reference these files, it's a bit hard to suggest the best way for you. However, here's a couple of things...
This video provides a quick overview of blob storage and retrieving items directly from BlobStorage. If you scenario requires you to serve up or store files on the local machine, this might be a good starting point.
BlobStorage supports direct access over HTTP and HTTPS, so you may want to simply reference files directly from BlobStorage (something that shouldn't be a problem as they're web assets). Check out the HTTP section in this article for the URL format. Note: you can also secure up these blob using SharedAccessSignatures if you want to restrict access.
There's no reason why you cannot use a standard VM then map a network drive using the Microsoft Azure File Service. I can't say I've personally done this, I used something else, but the concept a shared resource existing in BlobStorage is very doable.
HTH
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.