Overview¶
Azure Storage is the foundational data service for Microsoft Azure. Most Azure services depend on it for data persistence, application state, and durability.
Core Storage Services¶
| Service | Best For |
|---|---|
| Blob Storage | Unstructured data (objects, images, documents) |
| Azure Files | Fully managed cloud file shares (SMB/NFS) |
| Queue Storage | Asynchronous message queueing |
| Table Storage | NoSQL key-value store |
| Blob Storage with Data Lake Storage Gen2 | Big data analytics with hierarchical namespace |
Service Hierarchy¶
mermaid graph TD SA[Storage Account] SA --> BS[Blob Storage] SA --> AF[Azure Files] SA --> QS[Queue Storage] SA --> TS[Table Storage] BS --> DL[Data Lake Storage Gen2]
Note
The Storage Account is the unique namespace and common foundation for all storage services. Account-level settings like redundancy apply broadly, but the default access tier applies only to Blob Storage in supported account types.
Scope of this Guide¶
- Included: Cloud-native storage services, data redundancy, security patterns.
- Excluded: Compute-attached storage, SQL databases, Cosmos DB.