Many architects face the challenge of mapping and aligning the physical architecture with the Cloud architecture. This is primarily due to the wide array of choices on the Cloud and also due to some of the constraints introduced by the Cloud. Storage is one of the most critical players influencing the availability, reliability and cost of a Cloud application. This article summarizes various Cloud storage choices that are offered by Windows Azure. The objective is to identify the key role played by each of the storage services and highlight the common use case for that service.
In the traditional environments, the storage choices are typically based on the following -
- Direct Attached Storage
- In-Memory
- Message Queue
- Storage Area Network
- Network Attached Storage
- Databases
- Archival / Backup
However, on the Cloud, the terminology and the analogy of Storage is different from a classic on-premise storage terminology. For example, emulating SAN or NAS is difficult in the Cloud. But at the same time, Windows Azure offers a variety of storage choices to build web-scale application on the Cloud. We will now take a look at these choices to understand the scenarios and use cases.
- Local Storage
- Azure Drive
- Azure Blobs
- Azure Tables
- Azure Queues
- Azure Cache
- SQL Azure
- Custom Databases
