Data stores – Core Azure Resources

Data stores

Choosing the right data store that matches your data type is a key design decision; no single storage solution fits all data types, and several stores might be needed to provide a complete and optimal solution. Your solution will largely be determined by the data type(s) you wish to store.

The key factors in deciding on an optimal storage solution are as follows:

  • How you classify your data: structured, semi-structured, unstructured, or streaming; is this relational or non-relational data?

a) An example of structured data (also referred to as relational data) would be stored in databases, such as a CRM system. This includes anything with a strict schema, such as most operational data stored in a SQL database or business data stored in a data warehouse for analysis and decision-making.

b) Some examples of semi-structured data would be key/value pairs, JSON files, and XML files.

c) Some examples of unstructured data would be media files such as photos, videos, audio, and Office documents such as Word documents, PDF files, text files, and log files.

  • How your data will be used by the primary operations carried out on each data type: analytical, transactional, read/write, search/lookup, upload, change, and so on.
  • How you can get the best performance out of your application.
  • How you can get the best durability, availability, recovery, and security.
  • How you can be the most cost-effective.

The following diagram provides a simple data store selection guide; for clarity, not all the decision points have been shown:

Figure 4.23 – Selecting a data store

This section looked at data stores. In the next section, we will look at Azure Disk Storage.

Disk Storage

Disk Storage provides disks that can be attached to VMs. These provide the OS disk and temp disk that were used in a VM; data disks may also be attached to a VM to provide additional storage capacity and additional volumes to meet disk layout needs, such as a VM that will run SQL Server. In addition, these data disks may be used as an install path for applications or store data that you cannot store on the system volume.

Azure Managed Disks are the recommended disk storage for Azure VMs for persistent data storage. These disks are managed by Microsoft and will not appear in your storage accounts.

The following types of managed disks can be attached to a VM:

  • Standard HDD: Low-cost storage.
  • Standard SSD: Consistent performance and low latency.
  • Premium SSD: High performance and low latency.
  • Ultra disk: Sub-millisecond latency.

This section looked at disk storage. In the next section, we will look at file storage.

About the author

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *