Microsoft Azure Storage Essentials
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About this ebook
Harness the power of Microsoft Azure services to build efficient cloud solutions
About This Book- Get to grips with the features of Microsoft Azure in terms of Blob, Table, Queue, and File storage
- Learn the how and when of using the right storage service for different business use cases
- Make use of Azure storage services in various languages with this fast-paced and easy-to-follow guide
If you are an IT professional with basic knowledge of Microsoft Azure and want to learn Azure storage services, then this book is for you. Some familiarity with C# and Visual Studio is needed in order to utilize the examples present in the book.
What You Will LearnWith the many advantages of using cloud computing, Azure Storage is a robust platform that helps you shift faster to the cloud by providing scalable, durable and highly available data storage options. For developers, it provides a rapid development environment that supports building large-scale applications to support new scenarios on the cloud, server, mobile and web. For IT professionals, it reduces complexity of managing, protecting and replicating data.
This book will make you familiar with the Azure storage in terms of architecture and components. It starts with the basics of storage accounts, which give access to the four basic services the Blob, Table, Queue, and File storage services. These services are exposed through a REST API that makes it possible for client libraries to implement most of their functionality in a wide range of popular programming languages. Emphasizing the Windows Azure Client Library for .NET, we will deal with storing and retrieving unstructured data with Blobs, then will move to Tables to insert and update entities in a structured NoSQL fashion. Then we will discover Queues as a reliable messaging service, and after that we will show File storage that allows you to migrate legacy applications data to the cloud to end with transient fault handling and service monitoring.
Style and approachThis book is a concise and fast-paced guide to learn about development for storage services. Each topic is elaborated sequentially, in order to create basic knowledge for using it in the right place and the correct way.
Chukri Soueidi
Chukri Soueidi is a software developer based in Beirut, Lebanon. With an experience that spans more than 8 years, he specializes in web development and Microsoft technologies. He currently works at the American University of Beirut as a software engineer and systems analyst, developing new software solutions for the university and its medical center. He was awarded the Microsoft Most Valued Professional (MVP) award for 2 years 2014 and 2015 for his contributions to the technical communities of Visual C# and .NET. The MVP award is an annual award that recognizes exceptional technology community leaders worldwide, who actively share their high-quality and real-world expertise with other communities. With fewer than 5,000 awardees worldwide, Microsoft MVPs represent a highly selected group of experts. He is heavily involved in local developer communities in Beirut, coaching on the latest technologies, and he is also a regular speaker at the major evangelism events held by Microsoft, Lebanon. He conducted several workshops for university students and professionals on topics of software development and gaming technologies. Chukri is also a technical trainer and has been working as an instructor at the regional learning centers. Away from his laptop, Chukri is an avid marathon runner. He enjoys exploring new places and cooking with his beloved ones and friends. You can always reach him at chukrisoueidi@outlook.com.
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Microsoft Azure Storage Essentials - Chukri Soueidi
Table of Contents
Microsoft Azure Storage Essentials
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
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Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Downloading the example code
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. An Introduction to Microsoft Azure Storage Services
An introduction to Azure Storage
High availability and durability
Strong consistency
Scalability
Storage services
The Blob storage
The Table storage
The Queue storage
The File storage
Storage accounts
The namespaces and endpoints
Storage account security
Redundancy options
Metrics and logging
Summary
2. Developing Against Storage
The Service Management REST APIs
The request
The response
Microsoft Azure Management Libraries
The Storage Services REST APIs
The Blob service REST API
The Table service REST API
The Queue service REST API
The File service REST API
Azure Storage Client Libraries
Microsoft Azure Storage Client Library for .NET
Microsoft Azure Storage Client Library for Node.js
The Microsoft Azure Storage SDK for Java
The PHP Client Libraries for Azure
The Microsoft Azure SDK for Python
The Microsoft Azure SDK for Ruby
Azure Storage Emulator
PowerShell
Summary
3. Working with Blobs
Types of blobs
Block blobs
Page blobs
The blob structure
Containers
Addressing blobs
Using the Azure Storage Client Library
Creating a container
Uploading the first blob
Getting acquainted with an explorer
Downloading a blob
The container access level
Shared Access Signatures
Deleting a blob
Hierarchies
The $root container
The folder structure
Listing blobs
Paged listing and continuation tokens
Properties and metadata
Conditional headers
Blob snapshots
Summary
4. Working with Tables
The arrival of NoSQL
NoSQL
The Table storage basics
Entities
Naming rules
Using the Azure Storage Client Library
Starting with a table
Adding entities to a table
Entity Group Transactions
Updating entities
Querying the table
Continuation tokens
Summary
5. Designing Scalable and Performant Tables
Things to understand about Azure Table storage
The table's primary key
The three layer architecture
Partitions
Entity Group Transactions
Choosing between Azure Table and Azure SQL
Table design guidelines
Studying your data
Partition sizing
Querying performance
Selecting the best PartitionKey
Summary
6. Working with Queues
The need for queues
Increasing the availability and reliability
Reducing latency and avoiding IO bottlenecks
Load leveling
Passing messages between Azure web roles and worker roles
The Queue storage structure
Addressing
Naming
Service Bus Queues
Using the queue storage from .NET
Creating our first queue
Inserting a message in the queue
Handling large messages
Retrieving the next message
Getting more messages
The dequeueCount and poison messages
Peeking messages
Editing queue messages
Setting metadata for the queue
Getting the queue length and metadata
Deleting queues
Summary
7. Working with the Azure File Service
Where are Azure Files used?
The File storage structure
Using Azure Files
Using PowerShell with Azure Files
Getting familiar with Azure PowerShell
Creating a file share
Creating directories and subdirectories
Uploading the first file
Downloading a file
Listing files
Removing files
File Shares via the SMB 2.1 protocol
Persisting connections to shares
Mounting shares from Linux
File Shares via the Storage Client Library
Creating our share
Creating a directory
Uploading and downloading files
Using AzCopy
Summary
8. Transient Fault Handling and Analytics
Transient fault handling
Storage Analytics
A closer look at metrics
Transaction metrics
Capacity metrics
A closer look at logging
The log format
Analyzing the Storage Analytics data
Common practices
Summary
Index
Microsoft Azure Storage Essentials
Microsoft Azure Storage Essentials
Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: August 2015
Production reference: 1250815
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78439-623-7
www.packtpub.com
Credits
Author
Chukri Soueidi
Reviewers
David Braverman
Sebastian Durandeu
Florian Klaffenbach
Laxmikant P. Patil
Commissioning Editor
Amit Ghodake
Acquisition Editor
Sonali Vernekar
Content Development Editor
Siddhesh Salvi
Technical Editor
Madhunikita Sunil Chindarkar
Copy Editor
Ting Baker
Project Coordinator
Nidhi Joshi
Proofreader
Safis Editing
Indexer
Hemangini Bari
Production Coordinator
Nitesh Thakur
Cover Work
Nitesh Thakur
About the Author
Chukri Soueidi is a software developer based in Beirut, Lebanon. With an experience that spans more than 8 years, he specializes in web development and Microsoft technologies. He currently works at the American University of Beirut as a software engineer and systems analyst, developing new software solutions for the university and its medical center.
He was awarded the Microsoft Most Valued Professional (MVP) award for 2 years 2014 and 2015 for his contributions to the technical communities of Visual C# and .NET. The MVP award is an annual award that recognizes exceptional technology community leaders worldwide, who actively share their high-quality and real-world expertise with other communities. With fewer than 5,000 awardees worldwide, Microsoft MVPs represent a highly selected group of experts.
He is heavily involved in local developer communities in Beirut, coaching on the latest technologies, and he is also a regular speaker at the major evangelism events held by Microsoft, Lebanon. He conducted several workshops for university students and professionals on topics of software development and gaming technologies. Chukri is also a technical trainer and has been working as an instructor at the regional learning centers.
Away from his laptop, Chukri is an avid marathon runner. He enjoys exploring new places and cooking with his beloved ones and friends. You can always reach him at <chukrisoueidi@outlook.com>.
Acknowledgments
I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation and gratitude to the Packt Publishing team for all their trust and support. The comments of the technical editor, reviewers, and proofreaders were so valuable in realizing this title. I would also like to thank my acquisition editor, Sonali S. Vernekar, and the content development editor, Siddhesh Salvi, for their professionalism, guidance, and patience.
Furthermore, I would also like to express my appreciation for my family and the people who supported me throughout this new experience: my friend Rami Sarieddine, who provided me with key remarks and also shared his authoring experience with me; also, my brother Rabih Soueidi, Michel Makhoul, Saber Shebly, and Mohamad Ghandour for their constant motivation and advice.
Above all, I would like to thank my dearest Lena Osseyran for her remarkable support, motivation, and all the good food while writing! Thank you all.
About the Reviewers
David Braverman is the chief technology officer of Holden LLC, a pioneer in sales performance development. Braverman is also an accomplished software developer and consultant with nearly 25 years of experience of working in the U.S. and Europe. Before joining Holden LLC, Braverman performed due diligence technology investigations of potential acquisition targets for West Monroe Partners, created and developed a healthcare scheduling application for medical interpreter businesses, wrote security analysis and reporting software, assisted a Portuguese mobile telecom provider with location-based service offerings, and led a large team that developed an inventory prediction application for an international food manufacturer. Braverman earned his MBA from Duke University, a JD from Loyola University Chicago with special recognition in intellectual property law, and a BA from Hofstra University. You can follow him on his blog, http://www.thedailyparker.com/.
Sebastian Durandeu is a senior software engineer with a primary focus on building applications and services for the cloud using Microsoft technologies. He works at Southworks, a high-end software development company that helps businesses leverage the latest technologies. Here, he has worked closely with several Microsoft divisions, helping the developer community adopt emerging technologies by using recommended practices. Sebastian currently lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he is an active contributor to the developer community. He shares his knowledge via his Twitter (@sebadurandeu) and GitHub accounts (sdurandeu).
Florian Klaffenbach started his IT career in 2004 as a first- and second-level IT support technician and