Azure Storage Account Application Assets

Azure Storage Account

Azure Storage Accounts provide a scalable, durable, and highly available object storage solution. They can be used to store a variety of data, including blobs, files, queues, tables, and disks, supporting both REST API and SMB clients.

Design Decisions

This module is tailored to set up an Azure Storage Account with specific configurations:

• Storage Account Kind: StorageV2 is selected to allow for better performance and feature set.
• Performance Tier: Standard tier is used for cost efficiency while providing adequate performance.
• Access Tier: Hot tier is configured for frequently accessed data, providing faster access times.
• Replication: Supports various replication strategies defined by replication_type variable for high availability.
• Data Retention Policies: Configurations for blob and container deletion policies enhance data protection.
• Monitoring and Alerts: Built-in monitoring to check availability and latency, with automated alerts for quick notifications and resolutions.

Runbook

Unable to Access Blob Storage

If you're experiencing issues accessing your blob storage, ensure that your access credentials are correct and that the storage account is reachable.

Check access keys:

az storage account keys list --resource-group <resource-group-name> --account-name <storage-account-name>

Verify if the correct key is being used.

export AZURE_STORAGE_KEY=<one-of-the-listed-keys>

Check endpoint connectivity:

curl -I https://<storage-account-name>.blob.core.windows.net

You should get a response status code 200 or 403 (depending whether the account allows public access or requires authentication).

Blob Data Read/Write Issues

Verify if the appropriate roles are assigned to the user or application:

az role assignment list --assignee <user-or-service-principal-id>

Ensure the appropriate roles like Storage Blob Data Reader or Storage Blob Data Contributor are assigned.

High E2E Success Latency

If experiencing high end-to-end success latency, check storage account metrics:

az monitor metrics list --resource <storage-account-id> --metric SuccessE2ELatency

Analyze the output to identify patterns or times of high latency.

High Server Latency

For high server latency issues, review the server-side latency metrics:

az monitor metrics list --resource <storage-account-id> --metric SuccessServerLatency

Check whether the latency is occasional or consistent. If consistent, consider performance tier upgrade or reviewing the workload pattern.

Low Availability

If your storage account has low availability, validate the availability metric:

az monitor metrics list --resource <storage-account-id> --metric Availability

Check for recent incidents or maintenance activities that might have impacted availability:

az storage account show --name <storage-account-name> --resource-group <resource-group-name>