Upload, download, and manage Azure blobs, files, queues, and tables, as well as Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Data Lake Storage entities. Easily access virtual machine disks, and work with either Azure Resource Manager or classic storage accounts. Manage and configure cross-origin resource sharing rules.
Here you see how easy it is to create a snapshot before you begin with a Installation on the Azure Virtual Machine.
Create a Snapshot
Give the Snapshot a Name and select the Resource Group.
Snapshot Created Successfully š
When you open the Azure Portal and search for snapshots :
Phantom OS Disk with a Full Snapshot.
Azure Storage Explorer Emulator for Developers
Azurite open source Azure Storage API compatible server (emulator)
Azurite is an open source Azure Storage API compatible server (emulator). Based on Node.js, Azurite provides cross platform experiences for customers wanting to try Azure Storage easily in a local environment. Azurite simulates most of the commands supported by Azure Storage with minimal dependencies.
Azurite V2 is manually created with pure JavaScript, popular and active as an open source project. However, Azure Storage APIs are growing and keeping updating, manually keeping Azurite up to date is not efficient and prone to bugs. JavaScript also lacks strong type validation which prevents easy collaboration.
Compared to V2, Azurite V3 implements a new architecture leveraging code generated by a TypeScript Server Code Generator we created. The generator uses the same swagger (modified) used by the new Azure Storage SDKs. This reduces manual effort and facilitates better code alignment with storage APIs.
3.0.0-preview is the first release version using Azurite’s new architecture.
Features & Key Changes in Azurite V3
Blob storage features align with Azure Storage API version 2020-04-08 (Refer to support matrix section below)
Queue storage features align with Azure Storage API version 2020-04-08 (Refer to support matrix section below)
SharedKey/Account SAS/Service SAS
Get/Set Queue Service Properties
Preflight Request
Create/List/Delete Queues
Put/Get/Peek/Updata/Deleta/Clear Messages
FeaturesĀ NEWĀ on V3
Built with TypeScript and ECMA native promise and async features
New architecture based on TypeScript server generator. Leverage auto generated protocol layer, models, serializer, deserializer and handler interfaces from REST API swagger
Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer tool can make your life easier to do your Azure Storage Management. Copy – Paste data is a Great and handy feature for Administrators.
Hope this is useful and go try it yourself.
Microsoft Azure Storage tools
Type azcopy /? for help on AzCopy.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Azure>azcopy /?
—————————————————————————— AzCopy 7.1.0 Copyright (c) 2017 Microsoft Corp. All Rights Reserved.
——————————————————————————
AzCopy </Source:> </Dest:> [/SourceKey:] [/DestKey:] [/SourceSAS:] [/DestSAS:]
[/V:] [/Z:] [/@:] [/Y] [/NC:] [/SourceType:] [/DestType:] [/S]
[/Pattern:] [/CheckMD5] [/L] [/MT] [/XN] [/XO] [/A] [/IA] [/XA]
[/SyncCopy] [/SetContentType] [/BlobType:] [/Delimiter:] [/Snapshot]
[/PKRS:] [/SplitSize:] [/EntityOperation:] [/Manifest:]
[/PayloadFormat:]
## ## Common Options ##
## /Source:<source> Specifies the source data from which to copy.
The source can be a directory including:
a file system directory, a blob container,
a blob virtual directory, a storage file share,
a storage file directory, or an Azure table.
The source can also be a single file including:
a file system file, a blob or a storage file.
The source is interpreted according to following rules:
1) When either file pattern option /Pattern or
recursive mode option /S is specified,
the source will be interpreted to a directory.
2) When both file pattern option /Pattern and
recursive mode option /S are not specified,
the source can be a single file or a directory.
In this case, AzCopy will choose an existing
location as the source, if the source is both
an existing file and an existing directory,
the source will be interpreted to a single file.
/Dest:<destination> Specifies the destination to copy to.
The destination can be a directory including:
a file system directory, a blob container,
a blob virtual directory, a storage file share,
a storage file directory, or an Azure table.
The destination can also be a single file including:
a file system file, a blob or a storage file.
The destination is interpreted according to following rules:
1) When source is a single file, destination
is interpreted as a single file.
2) When source is a directory, destination
is interpreted as a directory.
/SourceKey:<storage-key> Specifies the storage account key for the
source resource.
/DestKey:<storage-key> Specifies the storage account key for the
destination resource.
/SourceSAS:<SAS-Token> Specifies a Shared Access Signature with READ and LIST permissions for the source (if
applicable). Surround the SAS with double
quotes, as it may contains special command-line
characters.
The SAS must be a Container/Share/Table SAS, or
an Account SAS with ResourceType that includes
Container.
If the source resource is a blob container,
and neither a key nor a SAS is provided, then
the blob container will be read via anonymous
access.
If the source is a file share or table, a key or
a SAS must be provided.
/DestSAS:<SAS-Token> Specifies a Shared Access Signature (SAS) with
READ and WRITE permissions for the
destination (if applicable). When /Y is
specified, and /XO /XN are not specified, the SAS
can have only WRITE permission for the operation
to succeed.
Surround the SAS with double quotes, as it may
contains special command-line characters.
The SAS must be a Container/Share/Table SAS, or
an Account SAS with ResourceType that includes
Container.
If the destination resource is a blob container,
file share or table, you can either specify this
option followed by the SAS token, or you can
specify the SAS as part of the destination blob
container, file share or table’s URI, without
this option.
This option is not supported when asynchronously
copying between two different types of storage
service or between two different accounts.
/V:[verbose-log-file] Outputs verbose status messages into a log
file.
By default, the verbose log file is named
AzCopyVerbose.log in
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Azure\AzCopy. If you
specify an existing file location for this
option, the verbose log will be appended to
that file.
/Z:[journal-file-folder] Specifies a journal file folder for resuming an
operation.
AzCopy always supports resuming if an
operation has been interrupted.
If this option is not specified, or it is
specified without a folder path, then AzCopy
will create the journal file in the default
location, which is
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Azure\AzCopy.
Each time you issue a command to AzCopy, it
checks whether a journal file exists in the
default folder, or whether it exists in a
folder that you specified via this option. If
the journal file does not exist in either
place, AzCopy treats the operation as new and
generates a new journal file.
If the journal file does exist, AzCopy will
check whether the command line that you input
matches the command line in the journal file.
If the two command lines match, AzCopy resumes
the incomplete operation. If they do not match,
you will be prompted to either overwrite the
journal file to start a new operation, or to
cancel the current operation.
The journal file is deleted upon successful
completion of the operation.
Note that resuming an operation from a journal
file created by a previous version of AzCopy
is not supported.
/@:<parameter-file> Specifies a file that contains parameters.
AzCopy processes the parameters in the file
just as if they had been specified on the
command line.
In a response file, you can either specify
multiple parameters on a single line, or
specify each parameter on its own line. Note
that an individual parameter cannot span
multiple lines.
Response files can include comments lines that
begin with the # symbol.
You can specify multiple response files.
However, note that AzCopy does not support
nested response files.
/Y Suppresses all AzCopy confirmation prompts.
/NC:<number-of-concurrent> Specifies the number of concurrent operations.
AzCopy by default starts a certain number of
concurrent operations to increase the data
transfer throughput.
Note that large number of concurrent operations
in a low-bandwidth environment may overwhelm
the network connection and prevent the
operations from fully completing. Throttle
concurrent operations based on actual available
network bandwidth.
The upper limit for concurrent operations is
512.
## ## Options – Applicable for Blob and Table Service Operations ##
##
/SourceType:<blob | table> Specifies that the source resource is a blob
or table available in the local development
environment, running in the storage emulator.
/DestType:<blob | table> Specifies that the destination resource is a
blob or table available in the local
development environment, running in the
storage emulator.
## ## Options – Applicable for Blob and File Service Operations ##
##
/S Specifies recursive mode for copy operations.
The /S parameter is only valid when the
source is a directory.
In recursive mode, AzCopy will copy all blobs
or files that match the specified file
pattern, including those in subfolders.
/Pattern:<file-pattern> Specifies a file pattern that indicates which
files to copy.
The behavior of the /Pattern parameter is
determined by the location of the source data,
and the presence of the recursive mode option.
The /Pattern parameter is only valid when the
source is a directory.
Recursive mode is specified via option /S.
If the specified source is a directory in
the file system, then standard wildcards are
in effect, and the file pattern provided is
matched against files within the directory.
If option /S is specified, then AzCopy also
matches the specified pattern against all
files in any subfolders beneath the directory.
If the specified source is a blob container or
virtual directory, then wildcards are not
applied. If option /S is specified, then AzCopy
interprets the specified file pattern as a blob
prefix. If option /S is not specified, then
AzCopy matches the file pattern against exact
blob names.
If the specified source is an Azure file share,
then you must either specify the exact file
name, (e.g. abc.txt) to copy a single file, or
specify option /S to copy all files in the
share recursively. Attempting to specify both a
file pattern and option /S together will result
in an error.
AzCopy uses case-sensitive matching when the
/Source is a blob, blob container or blob virtual
directory, and uses case-insensitive matching
in all the other cases.
The default file pattern used when no file
pattern is specified is *.* for a file system
location or an empty prefix for an Azure
Storage location.
Specifying multiple file patterns is not
supported.
/CheckMD5 Calculates an MD5 hash for downloaded data and
verifies that the MD5 hash stored in the blob
or file’s Content-MD5 property matches the
calculated hash. The MD5 check is turned off by
default, so you must specify this option to
perform the MD5 check when downloading data.
Note that Azure Storage doesn’t guarantee that
the MD5 hash stored for the blob or file is
up-to-date. It is client’s responsibility to
update the MD5 whenever the blob or file is
modified.
AzCopy always sets the Content-MD5 property for
an Azure blob or file after uploading it to the
service.
/L Specifies a listing operation only; no data is
copied.
AzCopy will interpret the using of this option as
a simulation for running the command line without
this option /L and count how many objects will
be copied, you can specify option /V at the same
time to check which objects will be copied in
the verbose log.
The behavior of this option is also determined by
the location of the source data and the presence
of the recursive mode option /S and file pattern
option /Pattern.
When using this option, AzCopy requires LIST and READ
permission of the source location if source is a directory,
or READ permission of the source location if source
is a single file.
/MT Sets the downloaded file’s last-modified time
to be the same as the source blob or file’s.
/XN Excludes a newer source resource. The resource
will not be copied if the source is the same
or newer than destination.
/XO Excludes an older source resource. The resource
will not be copied if the source resource is the
same or older than destination.
/A Uploads only files that have the Archive
attribute set.
/IA:[RASHCNETOI] Uploads only files that have any of the specified attributes set.
Available attributes include:
R Read-only files
A Files ready for archiving
S System files
H Hidden files
C Compressed file
N Normal files
E Encrypted files
T Temporary files
O Offline files
I Not content indexed Files
/XA:[RASHCNETOI] Excludes files from upload that have any of the specified attributes set.
Available attributes include:
R Read-only files
A Files ready for archiving
S System files
H Hidden files
C Compressed file
N Normal files
E Encrypted files
T Temporary files
O Offline files
I Not content indexed Files
/SyncCopy Indicates whether to synchronously copy blobs
or files among two Azure Storage end points.
AzCopy by default uses server-side
asynchronous copy. Specify this option to
download the blobs or files from the service
to local memory and then upload them to the
service.
/SyncCopy can be used in below scenarios:
1) Copying from Blob storage to Blob storage.
2) Copying from File storage to File storage.
3) Copying from Blob storage to File storage.
4) Copying from File storage to Blob storage.
/SetContentType:[content- type] Specifies the content type of the destination
blobs or files.
AzCopy by default uses
“application/octet-stream” as the content type
for the destination blobs or files. If option
/SetContentType is specified without a value
for “content-type”, then AzCopy will set each
blob or file’s content type according to its
file extension. To set same content type for
all the blobs, you must explicitly specify a
value for “content-type”.
## ## Options – Only applicable for Blob Service Operations ##
##
/BlobType:<page | block
| append> Specifies whether the destination blob is a
block blob, a page blob or an append blob.
If the destination is a blob and this option
is not specified, then by default AzCopy will
create a block blob.
/Delimiter:<delimiter> Indicates the delimiter character used to
delimit virtual directories in a blob name.
By default, AzCopy uses / as the delimiter
character. However, AzCopy supports using any
common character (such as @, #, or %) as a
delimiter. If you need to include one of these
special characters on the command line, enclose
it with double quotes.
This option is only applicable for downloading
from an Azure blob container or virtual directory.
/Snapshot Indicates whether to transfer snapshots. This
option is only valid when the source is a
blob container or blob virtual directory.
The transferred blob snapshots are renamed in
this format: [blob-name] (snapshot-time)
[extension].
By default, snapshots are not copied.
## ## Options – only applicable for Table Service Operations ##
##
/PKRS:<“key1#key2#key3#…”> Splits the partition key range to enable
exporting table data in parallel, which
increases the speed of the export operation.
If this option is not specified, then AzCopy
uses a single thread to export table entities.
For example, if the user specifies
/PKRS:”aa#bb”, then AzCopy starts three
concurrent operations.
Each operation exports one of three partition
key ranges, as shown below:
[<first partition key>, aa)
[aa, bb)
[bb, <last partition key>]
/SplitSize:<file-size> Specifies the exported file split size in MB.
If this option is not specified, AzCopy will
export table data to single file.
If the table data is exported to a blob, and
the exported file size reaches the 200 GB limit
for blob size, then AzCopy will split the
exported file, even if this option is not
specified.
/EntityOperation:<InsertOrSkip
| InsertOrMerge
| InsertOrReplace> Specifies the table data import behavior.
InsertOrSkip – Skips an existing entity or
inserts a new entity if it does not exist in
the table.
InsertOrMerge – Merges an existing entity or
inserts a new entity if it does not exist in
the table.
InsertOrReplace – Replaces an existing entity
or inserts a new entity if it does not exist
in the table.
/Manifest:<manifest-file> Specifies the manifest file name for the table
export and import operation.
This option is optional during the export
operation, AzCopy will generate a manifest file
with predefined name if this option is not
specified.
This option is required during the import
operation for locating the data files.
/PayloadFormat:<JSON | CSV> Specifies the format of the exported data file.
If this option is not specified, by default
AzCopy exports data file in JSON format.
#10 – Import data in a local folder to a new table
AzCopy /Source:D:\test\
/Dest:https://myaccount.table.core.windows.net/mytable1/ /DestKey:key
/Manifest:”myaccount_mytable_20140103T112020.manifest”
/EntityOperation:InsertOrReplace
Welcome to the February 2018 release of Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer.
ā¢ Support for File Share snapshots:
o Create and manage snapshots for your File Shares.
o Easily switch views between snapshots of your File Shares as you explore.
o Restore previous versions of your files.
ā¢ Preview support for Azure Data Lake Store:
o Connect to your ADLS resources across multiple accounts.
o Connect to and share ADLS resources using ADL URIs.
o Perform basic file/folder operations recursively.
o Pin individual folders to Quick Access.
o Display folder statistics.
Azure Storage Explorer (Preview) is a standalone app that enables you to easily work with Azure Storage data on Windows, macOS, and Linux. In this article, you learn several ways of connecting to and managing your Azure storage accounts.
Azure File Sync agent release notes
Azure File Sync (preview) allows you to centralize your organization’s file shares in Azure Files without giving up the flexibility, performance, and compatibility of an on-premises file server. It does this by transforming your Windows Servers into a quick cache of your Azure File share. You can use any protocol available on Windows Server to access your data locally (including SMB, NFS, and FTPS) and you can have as many caches as you need across the world.
Microsoft Azure Storage ExplorerĀ is a standalone app from Microsoft that allows you to easily work with Azure Storage data on Windows, macOS and Linux.
New
You can now create, manage, and promote blob snapshots.
Storage Explorer will now automatically download the latest version when it is available.
You can now sign in to Azure China, Azure Germany, and Azure US Government accounts.
You can now change the zoom level. Use the options in the View menu to Zoom In, Zoom Out, and Reset Zoom.
Unicode characters are now supported in user metadata for blobs and files.
Accessibility improvements.
The next version’s release notes can be viewed from the update notification. You can also view the current release notes from the Help menu.
Fixes
Fixed: the version number is now correctly displayed in Control Panel on Windows
Fixed: search is no longer limited to 50,000 nodes
Fixed: upload to a file share spun forever if the destination directory did not already exist
Fixed: improved stability for long uploads and downloads
Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview introduces Storage Spaces Direct, which enables building highly available storage systems with local storage. Then, this storage can be leveraged by VM”s running on the same cluster (hyperconverged deployment) or the storage can be exported as a File Share (disaggregated deployment). The hyper-converged deployment scenario has the Hyper-V (compute) and Storage Spaces Direct (storage) components on the same cluster. Virtual machine’s files are stored on local CSVs. This allows for simultaneously scaling both Hyper-V compute clusters and the storage it is using. Once Storage Spaces Direct is configured and the CSV volumes are available, configuring and provisioning Hyper-V is the same process and uses the same tools that you would use with any other Hyper-V deployment on a failover cluster
The Microsoft cloud offers a wide variety of storage services and solutions to meet your needs.
Integrating your storage by using Microsoft cloud services gives you access to a broad range of services and cloud platform options. You can use prepackaged solutions that are bundled with existing services, use existing services as a starting point for your storage solution with additional configuration or coding for a custom fit, or use storage building blocks, along with coding, to create your own storage solution or apps from scratch.
Azure-consistent Storage (ACS) is a new feature in Microsoft Azure Stack 2016 that delivers three critical Azure-consistent storage services for Azure Stack customers: blob, table and account management. Further, ACS also offers a storage cloud administration service to facilitate service provider administration of Azure-consistent Storage services.
ACS terminology :
Storage Developer develops cloud storage applications which consume blobs or tables. Typical Microsoft tools that a Storage Developer uses include Visual Studio, and Team Foundation Server.
Storage Tenant Administrator consumes storage services from a service provider. Storage Tenant Administrator also owns the storage account and custom OS image management for their organization, the latter are uploaded as page blobs into tenant storage accounts and referenced by VMs as needed. Typical Microsoft tools that a Storage Tenant Administrator uses include PowerShell and the Microsoft Azure Stack cloud portal.
Storage Service Provider delivers storage cloud services to customers on a multi-tenant shared storage cloud infrastructure. Typical Microsoft tools that a Storage Tenant Administrator uses include PowerShell and the Microsoft Azure Stack cloud portal.
Storage Fabric Administrator is a role within the Storage Service Provider persona. A Storage Fabric Administrator deploys and manages the traditional storage fabric life cycle, works with storage service administrator for capacity and resource planning. Typical Microsoft tools that a Storage Fabric Administrator uses include PowerShell.
Storage Service Administrator is a role within the Storage Service Provider persona. A Storage Service Administrator deploys and manages the storage cloud service life cycle, works with tenants for usage, Plan and Offer management, and works with the Storage Fabric Administrator for capacity and resource planning.
Storage Resource Provider (SRP) is the infrastructure component that enables storage cloud service management capabilities on, a Microsoft Azure Stack cloud. An SRP in one MAS region manages all the storage cloud services in that region, facilitating MAS delivery of not only Azure-consistent tenant management API capabilities, but also the storage service administrator management API capabilities.
Storage Farm is the collection of storage-related infrastructure and services that are managed and operated by the service provider in a single Microsoft Azure Stack cloud region. While a tenant has visibility and ownership only for self-provisioned subscriptions and storage accounts, a service provider in contrast has the operational and capacity management ownership of the entire multi-tenant Storage Farm
Storage Cluster refers to the Scale-out File Server (SOFS) failover cluster in the storage fabric layer. One or more storage clusters may be deployed in a Storage Farm by a service provider. The file shares on the Storage Clusters provide the necessary storage capacity for hosting Azure-consistent blobs and tables.
Virtualized Service is any ACS service that runs as a software service within a VM managed by the service provider. Most ACS Virtualized Services are web services, some of which are also externally accessible. All ACS Virtualized Services are also highly-available services powered by Azure Service Fabric and Failover Clustering technologies.
Service Role is a distinct role within the scope of an ACS service referenceable by ACS service administration portal and ACS PowerShell cmdlets. For the ACS Blob service, Blob Front-End and Blob Service are the two Service Roles. For the ACS Table service, Table Front-End, Table Master and Table Server are the three Service Roles. For the ACS Management service, Account Container Server, Metric Server and Health Monitoring Server are the three Service Roles.
Service Role Instance is a single operational instance of a Service Role. Each Service Role in a Storage Farm in a Microsoft Azure Stack cloud may have one or more Service Role Instances. A single ACS node (VM or physical machine) may host one or more Service Role Instances.
Storage Service Provider Resource is an administrative storage resource that a storage service provider uses to manage an aspect of storage cloud service represented by that resource. A File Share, a Storage Service Provider-managed VM, a Table Master instance are all examples of such resources.
Fault is an indication of an active problem with one storage service provider resource that typically requires administrative attention. An ACS storage monitoring service monitors each Storage Service Provider Resource and when a problem is detected, a fault is activated on that administrative resource. Storage Service Provider would then take appropriate remediation action to address the underlying issue that triggered the Fault, based on the contextual information provided in the Fault.
Cloud and Datacenter Management Blog 