I've been trying to get SQLite to work on an Azure website. I have deployed everything successfully but I need to point it to a file name for the database. I have looked at creating Blob storage but I'm unsure how to convert this into a file name that SQLite will accept.
I'm sure this has been done as I can see references to other issues related to SQLite on Azure.
I have read http://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html.
Based on my experience if you want to use SQLite with Azure Websites you can keep the database file within your deployment package so it will stay at the same server where your website is. Azure websites provide 1GB of application storage which is plenty for a database file. Your content with the websites will persist and access to SQLite DB will be fast. This is super easy and you can very easily do with ASP.NET web application or any other.
The problem of choosing Azure Blob storage is that if the database file is stored at Azure Blob storage, there are no API that SQLite can write to that file. So one option you could have is to writing locally first and then syncing to Azure Blob storage back and forth while others on SO may have some other options. If you want to backup your database file to Azure Blob storage for any reason you sure can do that separately however I think if you choose the have SQLite, the best would be the keep the database file with website to make it simple.
Related
I want to store user files like pdf, doc, and image from user interface using React. How can i store these types of files in azure table?
Can anyone help?
Using a table to store binary data or files is terrible.
If you are using React, I suggest you develop some API. Exposing api key by not making frontend is a terrible idea too.
You can store it in Azure storage (probably in Storage container or Storage File Share).
People prefer Azure storage file share since it allows them to mount in any windows VM very easily. you can do the same in Linux as well.
I want to spike whether azure and the cloud is a good fit for us.
We have a website where users upload documents to our currently hosted website.
Every document has an equivalent record in a database.
I am using terraform to create the azure infrastructure.
What is my best way of migrating the documents from the local file path on the server to azure?
Should I be using file storage or blob storage. I am confused about the difference.
Is there anything in terraform that can help with this?
Based on your comments, I would recommend storing them in Blob Storage. This service is suited for storing and serving unstructured data like files and images. There are many other features like redundancy, archiving etc. that you may find useful in your scenario.
File Storage is more suitable in Lift-and-Shift kind of scenarios where you're moving an on-prem application to the cloud and the application writes data to either local or network attached disk.
You may also find this article useful: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-decide-blobs-files-disks
UPDATE
Regarding uploading files from local computer to Azure Storage, there are actually many options available:
Use a Storage Explorer like Microsoft's Storage Explorer.
Use AzCopy command-line tool.
Use Azure PowerShell Cmdlets.
Use Azure CLI.
Write your own code using any available Storage Client libraries or directly consuming REST API.
I am updating a system that had all of it's files stored inside of sql server.
It's going from an on prem server to a Azure webapp.
My questions are:
I think I should be using a storage blob for these files. Is that correct or is there a better option inside of Azure that I should be using?
Is there a quick way to migrate files from sql to that blob?
For storage purposes, do I write the file to the blob and then store the hyperlink to that file?
The staging environment gets updated with the latest data from production when they do a release, is there a way to migrate storage blob to a different resource group for when they do this?
Yes, I would use blob.
Quickest way would be a quick powershell or cli script or console app to pull the files from the database and upload them to blob.
I don't store the entire hyperlink to the file in the database, just the path. That way the storage account and container can be environment configurations.
I would recommend against doing this... we've found since we started doing automated continuous deployment, we haven't had a reason to move backwards, which has eliminated a lot of effort. That being said, AzCopy is a utility that allows you to do server-side copy of blobs between storage accounts (along with many other types of source and destination if needed). That should do what you need.
To answer your questions:
I think I should be using a storage blob for these files. Is that
correct or is there a better option inside of Azure that I should be
using?
That's correct. Blob storage is meant for this purpose only.
Is there a quick way to migrate files from sql to that blob?
I'm not aware of any automated way to do that. What you would need to do is read the binary data from SQL Database and then create a stream out of it and upload that stream. You can use Azure Storage SDK for uploading purpose.
For storage purposes, do I write the file to the blob and then store
the hyperlink to that file?
Under normal circumstances, it is recommended approach however considering you have a need to create a staging environment that will be a copy of production environment (including database I am assuming), I would recommend you store 2 things in your database: blob container name and blob name (or you could store relative URL e.g. <container-name>/<blob-name>). Assuming you keep storage account name somewhere in the configuration file, you can create the URL dynamically using https://<account-name>.blob.core.windows.net/<container-name>/<blob-name> pattern.
The staging environment gets updated with the latest data from
production when they do a release, is there a way to migrate storage
blob to a different resource group for when they do this?
Azure Storage provides Copy Blobs functionality using which you can copy blobs from one blob container to another in same or a different storage account. You can use that to copy data from production environment to staging environment.
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 have a asp.net V2 website, which stores uploaded content to the file system and a SQL Server database (using Full-Text Search)
I'm trying to work out what the best configuration option would be for me on Azure?
I would like to have the site scalable, but if I do this how can I ensure that the uploaded content is shared across all the sites?
Also SQL Azure does not support Full-Text Searching, so does this mean I should setup a Virtual Machine and host it myself?
For your database, you'll want to run SQL Server in a Virtual Machine, as you'll then get all functionality of SQL Server, including FTS. It's very simple to get up and running with SQL Server VM's, as there's a gallery image with SQL Server preinstalled.
Regarding your file system storage: This won't scale to multiple instances. You'll need another mechanism for storage. Typically this would be Blob Storage, but... it depends on what you're doing with the files. If you're just serving / storing content (you mentioned uploaded content), this works great, and it's accessible across many instances. If, on the other hand, it's some type of file-based database or index, that won't really work well.
If you need to do some type of local processing on the files (e.g. photo or movie rendering), you can easily copy a blob's contents to a local VM disk, process the file with typical drive paths, then upload the results to another blob.