Being an Infrastructure Consultant, you always get the endless query from the customer "How", "Why" and "Where"? I was working with one of the customers to help them to archive files by using Azure Archive Storage. Let's understand about Azure Archive Storage and also will show you how you can implement it.
Azure Archive Storage
Azure Archive Blob storage is designed to provide organizations with a low cost means of delivering durable, highly available, secure cloud storage for rarely accessed data with flexible latency requirements.
Azure Blob Storage offers different tiers, which allows you to store your data in most effective cost manner. There are three available Access Tiers:
a) Hot: are for data that you frequently use or that is active in the background.
b) Cold: is for the data that is not often used and stored for at least 30 days. Example: Short-Term Backup, Disaster Recovery etc..
c) Archive: is for the data that is going to be rarely accessed and stored for at least 180 days.
Example: Raw data that must be preserve, Long Term Backup etc..
Please follow below steps to enable Azure Archive Blob Storage:
Step1: Create Storage Account:
Step2: Once Storage Account will be ready, Please open the same:
Step3: Once you open the properties page for Storage Account, Please go to the Blob Service, click on Blobs and create a container.
Step4: Next step is to upload the file which you are looking to archive. Open the container which you have created and click on Upload and select the file which you are looking to archive and click upload.
Even though, I uploaded the file, but still its show same Access Tier.
Step6: Now, Click on the uploaded file (Blob properties) and change the access tier to Archive and save it.
Once click on Archive, you will get below notifications that "Blob will be inaccessible until it is rehydrated".
Blob Rehydration
"To read data in archive storage, you must first change the tier of the blob to hot or cool. This process is known as rehydration and can take up to 15 hours to complete. Large blob sizes are recommended for optimal performance. Rehydrating several small blobs concurrently may add additional time."
Congratulations, you have finally archived the file!!