Basic BLOB Storage on Azure

BLOB (Binary Large Object) storage on Azure is a way to store large chunks of images, text, video, or any other files on the cloud that are accessed via HTTP or HTTPS requests all throughout the web. What this means for you is it’s an easy way to access your data from anywhere.  I used BLOB storage for my deck building site to host the large number of card images. Originally, I had hosted these images on my site’s project folder, but it was one of the reasons my site ran slow (see my article for keeping azure web apps active). I was initially intimidated about hosting via BLOB storage, but once I set it up I saw hosting data on BLOB storage is nothing to worry about. In fact, it’s so simple, even the Blob could do it.

On the Azure home page, search for Storage Accounts, and select it.

At the storage accounts screen select Add

Select Subscription; this location is usually where your paid accounts navigate to. Create a new Resource Group, or put it wherever your project is located. Provide a name of your choice to the Storage Account Name.  Location should be somewhere that makes sense for where you think the majority of your clientele will access from. Account Kind will be Blob Storage. Replication has a few different options and I’d recommend RA-GRS in order to duplicate your data at multiple different sites. If you want the cheapest option, you can go for Locally Redundant Storage (LRS), but if the site your data is located is ever corrupted or hit by a natural disaster, it will be lost forever More information on this can be found here.  Access Tier can be ‘cool’ for less frequent usage and ‘hot’ for more frequent usage.

Once you’re satisfied with your inputs, click the Review + Create button at the bottom of the screen, then the Create button on the next screen.

Once your resource is ready, click Go to Resource

Once in your storage account, scroll down the blade until you get to Blob Service, and select Containers and select the + Container button.

For Name put your desired container name. For Public Access Level, select Blob. You should realize that with this setting your data is publicly viewable. This was fine for my purposes, but it’s an important point to remember for your usage. When finished, click the Create button.

Once the container is created, select your container. ‘blobitup-container’ in this context.

With your container selected, let’s upload some pictures.

Click the folder icon to upload a picture to your container from your computer.

You can click Advanced to see additional options. I’ve kept them all set to default, but some of these settings may be important for you in future BLOB containers. Specifically, Block Size was relevant for me when I was uploading huge batches of card images. For file names, I’d suggest having no spaces and placing  ‘-’ or ‘_’ instead of spaces. When you’re satisfied with the results, press Upload.

Select your uploaded image.

Hover over the URL link and copy it to clipboard. This action will provide you with a link to your image that anyone can access anywhere, including your own web application! If you had chosen private access for your container, you could select the Generate SAS tab to create a temporary access key to your file.

Here is what I uploaded: I went heavy on the BLOB motif.

That’s all there is to setting up a BLOB container and uploading some files to it. I want to emphasize that it’s a BINARY large object, so you’re not only limited to images. I uploaded text files, images, and even a pdf of my college transcript for the hell of it and they all worked. Another amazing thing about these storage containers is just how cheap they are to run on your Azure account. Below is my monthly cost for hosting hundreds of card images (about 72 MB of data), so I think you’ll be ok. More information on BLOB pricing can be found here.

I hope you were able to see just how simple it is to set up a BLOB container and aren’t intimidated like I was. It’s a great way to host your site’s content without bogging down your project repository. Be like the BLOB and use BLOB storage!