An Introduction to

Windows Azure Blob

Storage

Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui

Senior Consultant Engineer

This document introduces the Windows Azure

Blob storage service and demonstrates how to
create or set up a storage account on Windows
Azure.

This document also provides code samples for

performing different operations on Windows
Azure Storage for binary large objects (“blobs”),
including creating, deleting, copying, listing,
setting access control, adding properties,
adding metadata, etc.

The code examples are written in C# and use

the Windows Azure Storage Client Library for
.NET (Microsoft.Windows Azure.Storage Client).

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

Introduction
The term “blob” is commonly understood to mean If you go by Microsoft’s definition, “Windows Azure
“Binary Large OBject.” Many of us are familiar with this Blob storage is a service for storing large amounts of
term from its usage in a database, where “blob data” unstructured data that can be accessed from anywhere
might be data stored in our database that does not in the world via HTTP or HTTPS.”
conform to an established data type as defined by the
database. Such data is usually persisted as plain binary In the below example, myaccount is the name of the
data. storage account, mycontainer is the container name, and
myblob is your actual blob.
Windows Azure Blob storage offers a way to store
content and make it available across the web. It’s like https://myaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/
a storage drive on the cloud that is used to store large myblob
amounts of data. You can store files and folders of any
format and type – just like the drive on your computer – A blob’s size can be hundreds of GBs, and a storage
and share it across the web. account can contain up to 200TB of blobs.

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

Using Blob Storage

According to Microsoft, Azure Blob storage might Container
include (but are definitely not limited to): A container is a grouping for a set of blobs, since
blobs cannot be stored directly in a storage account. A
• Serving images or documents directly to a browser container can store an unlimited number of blobs.
• Storing files for distributed access
• Streaming video and audio Blob
• Performing secure backup and disaster recovery
• Storing data for analysis by an on-premise or Blob storage is the usual way of storing file-based
Windows Azure-hosted service information in Azure. A blob file can be any type and
size. There are two types of blobs that can be stored in
Blob Storage Components Windows Azure Storage: block blobs and page blobs.
The below table provides more details about each type
Storage Account of blob.
A storage account is the top-level namespace for
accessing blob content, and all storage takes place
Block Blob Page Blob
here. An account can contain an unlimited number of
containers, as long as their total size is under 200TB. Max Size 200 GB Max Size 1 TB
Windows Azure Storage provides a way to store three Each block can be 4 MB Each page can be 512
types of data: Bytes
A block blob provides the A page blob is best
• Files, inside Blob Storage
ability to upload a large optimized for random
• Data, inside Table Storage
amount of data very fast, access (i.e., specifying
• Messages, inside Queue Storage
as the upload itself can be an offset in the blob for
done in parallel. reading/writing).

Storage Account Container Blob

FAQ.txt
TnC.txt
mycontainer
Folder1
myaccount
media
IMG1.jpg
VE1.mp3

Figure 1: Blob Storage Components

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

Setting Up a Storage Account on Windows Azure

Before going further, we first need to set up a Windows Azure storage account to execute any storage operation.
You can set up a storage account by using the Windows Azure Service Management Rest API or via the Windows
Azure Management portal. Below is an example of using this second approach.

1. Log into http://manage.windowsazure.com/

2. Click the New on the bottom navigation pane.

3. You will see an open window as shown in figure below.

4. Click Data Services.

5. Click Storage.

6. Click Quick Create.

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

7. In the URL textbox, enter a storage account name to use in the URI. The name should be 3-24 lowercase letters
and numbers. This value becomes the host name within the URI that is used to address blob, queue, or table
resources for the subscription.

8. Under the Location/Affinity Group dropdown menu, select a Region/Affinity Group in which to locate the storage.
If you will be using storage from your Windows Azure application, select the same region where you will deploy
your application.

9. Optionally, you can Enable Geo-Replication.

10. Click on Create Storage Account.

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

Geo-Replication for Azure Storage

With geo-replication, Windows Azure Storage now keeps Currently all storage accounts are bootstrapped and in
your data durable in two locations. In both locations, geo-replication mode between primary and secondary
Windows Azure Storage constantly maintains multiple storage locations.
healthy replicas of your data.
Geo-Location Pairings
The location where you read, create, update, or delete
data is referred to as the primary location. The primary Primary Secondary
location exists in the region you choose at the time
you create an account via the Azure Portal (e.g., North North Central US South Central US
Central US). The location where your data is geo- South Central US North Central US
replicated is referred to as the secondary location. The East US West US
secondary location is automatically determined based on
the location of the primary; it is in the other data center West US East US
that is in the same region as the primary location. North Europe West Europe
West Europe North Europe
In the future, Microsoft plans to support the ability for
South East Asia East Asia
customers to choose their secondary location, as well as
the ability to swap their primary and secondary locations East Asia South East Asia
for a storage account.
How Geo-Replication Works
Geo-replication is included in the current pricing for When you create, update, or delete data to your storage
Azure Storage, and it is called Geo Redundant Storage. account, the transaction is fully replicated on three
If you do not want your data geo-replicated, you can different storage nodes across three fault domains
disable geo-replication for your account. This is called and update domains. Windows Azure then syncs this
Locally Redundant Storage, and it is a 23% to 34% same data with the other associated nodes and returns
discounted price (depending on how much data is success back to the client.
stored) over geo-replicated storage.
In the background, the primary location asynchronously
When you turn geo-replication off, the data will be replicates the recently committed transaction to the
deleted from the secondary location. If you decide to secondary location. That transaction is then made
turn geo-replication on again after you have turned it off, durable by fully replicating it across three different
there is a re-bootstrap egress bandwidth charge (based storage nodes in different fault and upgrade domains
on the data transfer rates) for copying your existing data at the secondary location. Because the updates are
from the primary to the secondary location to kick start asynchronously geo-replicated, there is no change in
geo-replication for the storage account. This charge will existing performance for your storage account.
be applied only when you turn geo-replication on after
you have turned it off. There is no additional charge for
continuing geo-replication after the re-bootstrap is done.

Primary Storage Secondary Storage

(North Central US) (South Central US)

Node 1 Node 2 Node 3 Node 1 Node 2 Node 3

Figure 2: How Geo-Replication Works

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

How Geo-Failover Works

In the event of a major disaster that affects the primary Container Name
location, the geo-failover process will first try to restore A container name must be a valid DNS name, conforming
the primary location. If the primary location cannot be to the following naming rules:
restored, a geo-failover will need to be performed.
1. Container names must start with a letter or number,
As part of the failover, the customer’s DNS entry and they can contain only letters, numbers, and the
would be updated to point from the primary location dash (-) character.
to the secondary location. Once this DNS change 2. Every dash (-) character must be immediately
is propagated, the existing blob and table URIs will preceded and followed by a letter or number;
work. This means that you do not need to change your consecutive dashes are not permitted in container
application’s URIs – all existing URIs will work the same names.
after a geo-failover. 3. All letters in a container name must be lowercase.
4. Container names must be 3 to 63 characters long.
The location that is accepting traffic is considered the
new primary location for the storage account. This Blob Name
location will remain as the primary location unless A blob name can contain any combination of characters,
another geo-failover occurs. but reserved URL characters must be properly escaped.
A blob name must be at least one character long and
cannot be more than 1,024 characters long. Blob names
Naming and Referencing Containers, are case-sensitive.
Blobs, and Metadata
Metadata Name
Resource Name Metadata for a container or blob resource is stored
The URI to reference a container or a blob must be as name-value pairs associated with the resource.
unique. Because every account name is unique, two Metadata names must adhere to the naming rules for C#
accounts can have containers with the same name. identifiers.
However, within a given storage account, every container
must have a unique name. Every blob within a given Note that metadata names preserve the case with
container must also have a unique name within that which they were created, but they are case-insensitive
container. If you attempt to create a container or blob when set or read. If two or more metadata headers with
with a name that violates the naming rules, the request the same name are submitted for a resource, the blob
will fail with the status code 400 (Bad Request). service returns the status code 400 (Bad Request).

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

 
Code Samples for Blob Operations
Before working with blobs, you first need to configure the storage account connection string in your application.
When using Windows Azure Cloud Services, it is recommended that you store your connection string using the
Windows Azure service configuration system (*.csdef and *.cscfg files).

When using Windows Azure Web Sites, Windows Azure Virtual Machines, or building .NET applications that are
intended to run outside of Windows Azure, it is recommended that you store your connection string using the .NET
configuration system (e.g. web.config or app.config file).

Now you need to add assembly reference of Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.dll in your project reference.
You can use NuGet to obtain the Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.dll assembly. Right-click your project in Solution
Explorer and choose Manage NuGet Packages. Search online for “WindowsAzure.Storage” and click Install to install
the Windows Azure Storage package and dependencies.

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

Namespace Declaration
Add the following namespace declarations to the top of any C# file in which you wish to programmatically access
Windows Azure Storage.

Retrieve Storage Connection String

You can use the CloudStorageAccount type to represent your storage account information. If you are using a
Windows Azure project, you can you use the CloudConfigurationManager type to retrieve your storage connection
string and storage account information from the Windows Azure service configuration.

If you are using Windows Azure Web Sites, Windows Azure Virtual Machines, or building .NET applications that are
intended to run outside of Windows Azure, and your connection string is located in the web.config or app.config
(as show above), then you can use ConfigurationManager to retrieve the connection string. You will need to add a
reference to System.Configuration.dll to your project, and add another namespace declaration for it.

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

A CloudBlobClient type allows you to retrieve objects that represent containers and blobs stored within the Blob
Storage Service. The below diagrams contain code snippets for the following functions.

Create Container

LIST Container

Delete Container

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

Get Container Access Control

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

Set Container Access Control

Get Container Properties

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

Get Container Metadata

List Blob

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

Get Blob

Copy Blob

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

Delete Blob

Get Blob Metadata

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

Set Blob Metadata

Get Blob Properties

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

Set Blob Properties

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An Introduction to Windows Azure Blob Storage Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui, Senior Consultant Engineer

Summary About the Author

Windows Azure blob storage is a great tool for easily Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui is a Senior Consultant Engineer
storing and accessing large amounts of data. With the at Globallogic India. With over 13 years of experience
above tutorials and code samples, you can quickly set up in Microsoft technologies across multiple domains, he
a storage account and begin using this helpful resource specializes in Windows Azure Cloud.
immediately.

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About GlobalLogic Inc.
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