Azure provides several storage options that accommodate specific types of data storage needs.
- Azure SQL Database ( Amazon RDS).
Azure SQL Database is a relational database as a service (DaaS) based on the latest stable version of the Microsoft SQL Server database engine. SQL Database is a high-performance, reliable, fully managed and secure database. You can use it to build data-driven applications and websites in the programming language of your choice without needing to manage infrastructure.
You can migrate your existing SQL Server databases with minimal downtime using the Azure Database Migration Service. The service uses the Microsoft Data Migration Assistant to generate assessment reports that provide recommendations to help guide you through required changes prior to performing a migration. Once you assess and perform any remediation required, you’re ready to begin the migration process. The Azure Database Migration Service performs all of the required steps. You just change the connection string in your apps.
- Azure Cosmos DB (In Amazon DynamoDB)
Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed database service. It supports schema-less data that lets you build highly responsive and Always On applications to support constantly changing data. You can use this feature to store data that is updated and maintained by users around the world. The following illustration shows a sample Azure Cosmos DB database that’s used to store data that’s accessed by people located across the globe.
- Azure Blob storage (In Amazon it will be Amazon S3)
Azure Blob Storage is unstructured, meaning that there are no restrictions on the kinds of data it can hold. Blobs are highly scalable and apps work with blobs in much the same way as they would work with files on a disk, such as reading and writing data. Blob Storage can manage thousands of simultaneous uploads, massive amounts of video data, constantly growing log files, and can be reached from anywhere with an internet connection.
Blobs aren’t limited to common file formats. A blob could contain gigabytes of binary data streamed from a scientific instrument, an encrypted message for another application, or data in a custom format for an app you’re developing.
- Azure Data Lake Storage (In Amazon Kinesis Analytics).
The Data Lake feature allows you to perform analytics on your data usage and prepare reports. Data Lake is a large repository that stores both structured and unstructured data.
Azure Data Lake Storage combines the scalability and cost benefits of object storage with the reliability and performance of the Big Data file system capabilities. The following illustration shows how Azure Data Lake stores all your business data and makes it available for analysis.
- Azure Files (In Amazon Elastic File System)
Azure Files offers fully managed file shares in the cloud that are accessible via the industry standard Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. Azure file shares can be mounted concurrently by cloud or on-premises deployments of Windows, Linux, and macOS. Applications running in Azure virtual machines or cloud services can mount a file storage share to access file data, just as a desktop application would mount a typical SMB share. Any number of Azure virtual machines or roles can mount and access the file storage share simultaneously. Typical usage scenarios would be to share files anywhere in the world, diagnostic data, or application data sharing.
- Azure Queue (In Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS))
Azure Queue storage is a service for storing large numbers of messages that can be accessed from anywhere in the world.
Azure Queue Storage can be used to help build flexible applications and separate functions for better durability across large workloads. When application components are decoupled, they can scale independently. Queue storage provides asynchronous message queueing for communication between application components, whether they are running in the cloud, on the desktop, on-premises, or on mobile devices, Typically, there are one or more sender components and one or more receiver components. Sender components add messages to the queue, while receiver components retrieve messages from the front of the queue for processing.
- Disk Storage (In Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS))
Disk storage provides disks for virtual machines, applications, and other services to access and use as they need, similar to how they would in on-premises scenarios. Disk storage allows data to be persistently stored and accessed from an attached virtual hard disk. The disks can be managed or unmanaged by Azure, and therefore managed and configured by the user. Typical scenarios for using disk storage are if you want to lift and shift applications that read and write data to persistent disks, or if you are storing data that is not required to be accessed from outside the virtual machine to which the disk is attached, Disks come in many different sizes and performance levels, from solid-state drives (SSDs) to traditional spinning hard disk drives (HDDs), with varying performance abilities.
- Storage type :-
- Hot storage tier: optimized for storing data that is accessed frequently. –> Default in Amazon
- Cool storage tier: optimized for data that are infrequently accessed and stored for at least 30 days. –> S3 Infrequent Access (IA)
- Archive storage tier: for data that are rarely accessed and stored for at least 180 days with flexible latency requirements. –> In Amazon S3 Glacier
Cheers
Osama
Technology Geek 