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Samuel
Samuel

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Provide storage for the public website

Create a storage account with high availability.

An Azure storage account contains all of your Azure Storage data objects: blobs, files, queues, and tables. The storage account provides a unique namespace for your Azure Storage data, accessible from anywhere in the world over HTTP or HTTPS.
A storage account is an Azure Resource Manager resource. Resource Manager is the deployment and management service for Azure.
Every Resource Manager resource, including an Azure storage account, must belong to an Azure resource group. A resource group is a logical container for grouping your Azure services. When you create a storage account, you have the option to either create a new resource group or use an existing resource group.
Now, let's talk about creating a storage account With High Availability. in the IT world, the safety of your data is amongst the most essential and basic things. When you store data in Microsoft Azure, regardless of the type of storage, it is stored somewhere in the data centers of Microsoft.

However, what if one day you wake up and read the news about the devastating accident that has completely destroyed the data center in question? Kind of a nightmare really.

To prevent that from happening, Microsoft has made provision for data replication among their data centers, which allows your data to be available at any time you desire to access it.
A highly available (HA) storage account ensures continuous access to data by replicating it across multiple physical locations, protecting against hardware failures, network issues, or regional outages.
Also, high availability and high redundancy can be used interchangeably.

Key Requirements for High Availability

  • Redundancy – Data is stored in multiple locations.

  • Failover Support – Automatic switch to backup if primary fails.

  • Performance – Maintains low latency despite replication.

So, in this article, I would like us to go through the process and procedures to set up a highly available data environment and resources. (e.g, a public website).

1. Create a storage account to support the public website.

  • In the portal, search for and select Storage accounts.
    search and select storage account

  • Select + Create.
    click on plus-create

  • For resource group select new. Give your resource group a name and select OK.
    Enter a name for the new resource group

  • Set the Storage account name to publicwebsite. Make sure the storage account name is unique by adding an identifier.
    setting your storage and make it uniqueTake the defaults for other settings.

  • Select Review and then Create.
    Create

wait while review and create validate your settings

-Wait for the storage account to deploy, and then select Go to resource.
Goto resource

2. This storage requires high availability if there’s a regional outage. Additionally, enable read access to the secondary region

The process below enables the provision of high availability:

  • In the storage account, in the Data management section, select the Redundancy blade.
    -Ensure Read-access Geo-redundant storage is selected.
    confirm Geo-redundant is selected to ensure high availability

  • Review the primary and secondary location information.
    confirmed the locations are paired for availability

3. Information on the public website should be accessible without requiring customers to login.

  • In the storage account, in the Settings section, select the Configuration blade.
  • Ensure the Allow blob anonymous access setting is Enabled. Enable allow blob anonymous access Be sure to Save your changes.

Create a blob storage container with anonymous read access

1. The public website has various images and documents. Create a blob storage container for the content.

  • In your storage account, in the Data storage section, select the Containers blade.
    Select container blade

  • Select + Container.
    select plus-add container

  • Ensure the Name of the container is public.

  • Select Create.
    enter container and create

Now the container is confirmed successfully added to a storage account.
Container is added

2. Customers should be able to view the images without being
authenticated. Configure anonymous read access for the public
container blobs.

  • Select your public container.
  • On the Overview blade, select Change access level.
    select change access level

  • Ensure the Public access level is Blob (anonymous read access for blobs only).
    anonymous read access for blobs only is changed

  • Select OK.
    Click Ok

Practice uploading files and testing access.

1. For testing, upload a file to the public container. The type of file doesn’t matter. A small image or text file is a good choice.

  • Ensure you are viewing your container.
  • Select Upload. navigate to upload menu
  • Browse to files and select a file. Browse to a file of your choice. Browse to files
  • Select upload. Upload your files
  • Close the upload window, Refresh the page and ensure your file was uploaded. Refresh and confirm your file is uploaded.

2. Determine the URL for your uploaded file. Open a browser and test the URL.

  • Select your uploaded file.
  • On the Overview tab, copy the URL. copy Url

OR

Copy Url

  • Paste the URL into a new browser tab.
  • If you have uploaded an image file it will display in the browser. Other file types should be downloaded.

Configure soft delete

1. It’s important that the website documents can be restored if they’re deleted. Configure blob soft delete for 21 days.

  • Go to the Overview blade of the storage account.
  • On the Properties page, locate the Blob service section.
  • Select the Blob soft delete setting. Navigate to blob soft delete setting
  • Ensure the Enable soft delete for blobs is checked.
  • Change the Keep deleted blobs for (in days setting is 21. change the days 21
  • Don’t forget to Save your changes.

Notice you can also Enable soft delete for containers.

2. If something gets deleted, you need to practice using soft delete to restore the files.

  • Navigate to your container where you uploaded a file.
  • Select the file you uploaded and then select Delete.
    select the file uploaded in the container
    Select OK to confirm deleting the file.

  • On the container Overview page, toggle the slider Show deleted blobs. This toggle is to the right of the search box.
    toggle to show active and deleted containers

  • Select your deleted file, and use the ellipses on the far right, to Undelete the file.
    selete undelete
    save the container

  • Refresh the container and confirm the file has been restored.
    Confirm the container is restored

Configure blob versioning

1. It’s important to keep track of the different website product document versions.

  • Go to the Overview blade of the storage account.
  • In the Properties section, locate the Blob service section.
  • Select the Versioning setting.
    click on versioning setting

  • Ensure the Enable versioning for blobs checkbox is checked.
    check parameters to enable versioning- Don’t forget to Save your changes.

  • Notice your options to keep all versions or delete versions after.

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