Azure Storage Interview Questions And Answers

What is Azure Storage?

Azure Storage refers to a group of data services provided by Azure. These are -

Azure Blobs - Object store for text and binary data.

Azure Files - File store that can be access by SMB (Server Message Block) protocol or NFS (Network File System) protocol.

Azure Queues - Messaging store for messaging between applications.

Azure Tables - NoSQL store for storage of schemaless data.

Azure Disks - Block-level storage For Azure VMs.

What is Azure Storage Account?

Azure Storage Account contains one or more sets (containers) of your Azure Storage Services (Azure Blobs, Azure Files, Azure Queues, and Azure Tables). Azure Storage Account provides a unique endpoint for each of your Azure Services, which can be accessed from anywhere in the world using HTTP or HTTPS protocols.

Azure Storage Account is an Azure resource, and is included in a resource group.

What is Azure Blob Storage? What kind of content is ideal for storing in Blob Storage?

Azure Blob Storage is an object storage solution provided by Azure, that can be accessed from anywhere in the world using HTTP or HTTPS protocols.

Blob Storage is ideal for storing massive amounts of unstructured data such as text or binary data.

Following are some examples of files ideal for storing in Azure Storage Blob

- Images and documents that can be served directly to browser
- Text and binary files for distributed access
- Streaming video and audio files
- Storing backup data
- Storing data for analysis

What is Azure Files Storage?

Azure Files is a file share service offered by Azure that is accessible via the industry standard Server Message Block (SMB) protocol or Network File System (NFS) protocol.

Following are some scenario in which Azure files.

- To replace or supplement traditional on-premises NAS devices or file servers.
- For 'List and Shift' applications that need a file share to store application data.
- For cloud deployments - to share application settings across application instances, to store application diagnostics such as log files, metrics, and crash dumps.

What is Azure Queue Storage?

Azure Queue Storage is a storage service provided by Azure that store large number of messages, which can be processed asynchronously. The messages can be accessed from anywhere in the world using Http or Https protocols.

What is Azure Tables Storage?

Azure Tables Storage is a storage service provided by Azure that stores non-relational structured data (structured NoSQL data), ideal for storing key-value data that is schemaless.

Structurally - Azure Tables Storage contains Tables, with each Table containing Entities, and each Entity containing properties which are name-value pairs.

What is Azure Disk Storage?

Azure Disk Storage consists of block-level storage volumes used with Azure VMs and managed by Azure. Managed disks are similar to on-premises physical disks, but are virtualized.

Various kinds of disks are available as part of Azure Disk storage including standard hard disk drives (HDD), solid-state drives (SSD), and ultra disks.

You have to design a solution for an application to support videos that can be streamed directly to the browser, as well as be shared across applications. What storage service would you use?

Azure Blob Storage. Blob Storage is ideal for storing massive amounts of unstructured data like binary data, such as video files; which can be streamed directly to browsers, can be accessed from anywhere in the world, and also can be shared across applications.

You have to 'lift and shift' an on-premises application to cloud. The application uses on-premises file servers. What storage service would you use on cloud to replace the on-premises servers?

Azure File Storage. Azure File Storage can be used to replace on-premises file servers, and can be accessed via the standard SMB and NFS protocols, accessed from anywhere in the world , and can be shared across applications in the cloud..

You have to design a solution to decouple application components and use asynchronous data exchange and processing between them. What storage service would you use?

Azure Queue Storage. Azure Queue Storage allows for asynchronous message queuing between application components.