Azure File Storage

1. What is Azure File Storage?

• Provides fully managed file shares hosted in Azure Storage accounts.

• Supports lift-and-shift migrations of legacy applications using standard file protocols.

• Enables shared access for multiple users and systems simultaneously.

• Integrates with Windows, Linux, and macOS clients.

2. Core Concepts and Architecture

3. Pricing Model

4. Performance Tiers and Scalability

• Standard Tier: Based on HDD storage, suitable for general-purpose workloads with moderate throughput.

• Premium Tier: SSD-backed storage with high throughput, low latency, and support for larger file shares.

• Scalability:
• Scales automatically with storage size and transaction volume.
• Max share size depends on tier (e.g., Premium supports up to 100 TiB).
• Supports concurrent access from thousands of clients.

5. Security and Identity Management (IAM)

6. Development and Integration

Access and Mounting:

• Supports mounting on-premises or Azure VMs as SMB/NFS shares.

• Can be accessed via REST API and Azure SDKs (limited file operations via API).

Sample: Mount an Azure File Share on Windows (PowerShell)

$storageAccountName = "<storage-account-name>"
$fileShareName = "<file-share-name>"
$storageAccountKey = "<storage-account-key>"

# The UNC path for the share
$netUseCommand = "\\$storageAccountName.file.core.windows.net\$fileShareName"

# Mount the share using net use with storage account key as password
net use Z: $netUseCommand /u:$storageAccountName $storageAccountKey

Sample: Mount on Linux Using SMB

sudo mkdir /mnt/azurefiles
sudo mount -t cifs //<storage-account-name>.file.core.windows.net/<file-share-name> /mnt/azurefiles -o vers=3.0,username=<storage-account-name>,password=<storage-account-key>,dir_mode=0777,file_mode=0777,serverino

7. Deployment and Configuration

• Create Storage Account and File Shares via:
• Azure Portal
• Azure CLI
• ARM or Bicep templates
• PowerShell

Sample Azure CLI commands:

# Create resource group
az group create --name MyResourceGroup --location eastus

# Create storage account for file shares
az storage account create --name mystorageaccount --resource-group MyResourceGroup --location eastus --sku Standard_LRS

# Create file share
az storage share create --account-name mystorageaccount --name myfileshare

• Configure quotas, network rules, Active Directory integration as needed.

• Configure Azure File Sync agents on on-premises servers for hybrid scenarios.

8. Monitoring and Diagnostics

• Azure Monitor tracks metrics such as capacity, transaction counts, ingress/egress data, and latency.

• Diagnostic logs capture file share operations and access logs.

• Alerts can be configured on thresholds to detect anomalies or performance issues.

9. Advanced Features and Use Cases

10. Best Practices

• Use Premium tier for performance sensitive workloads.

• Enable soft delete and snapshots for backup and data protection.

• Use Azure File Sync to cache data on-premises and reduce latency.

• Secure shares with private endpoints and AD-based authentication.

• Design for concurrent access and avoid single points of contention.

• Monitor usage and scale quotas according to workload requirements.

• Use lifecycle policies for cleanup or archival if integrated with backup solutions.

11. Summary Table: Azure File Storage

FAQ

• Standard tier: HDD-backed storage with moderate throughput and latency, suited for file shares with lower performance requirements.

• Premium tier: SSD-backed, high throughput, low latency, supports higher IOPS, suitable for IO-intensive workloads, large file shares, and mission-critical applications.

• On Windows: Use net use command with the UNC path and storage account credentials, supporting SMB protocol.

• On Linux: Use mount -t cifs command with storage account credentials, specifying SMB version, or mount -t nfs for NFS shares (Premium tier).

Intermediate Interview Questions and Answers

Advanced and Tricky Interview Questions and Answers