Decides whether internet clients reach a storage account's public endpoint over Microsoft's network, the default, or via internet routing. The choice affects the network path and egress charges, not access rights.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Routing preference in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Storage account
The top-level resource in Azure Storage, giving a unique namespace for table, queue, file and blob data. Location, performance and kind are set when it is created and cannot change.
- Public endpoint
When a service has a public IP, anyone online can attempt a connection, with authentication and firewall rules deciding who gets in. Private endpoints and service endpoints offer private alternatives.
- OVER
Gives a T-SQL window function its window: PARTITION BY, ORDER BY and, if wanted, a ROWS or RANGE frame. Rankings and running totals can then be worked out while every row is kept.
- Internet routing
Routing preference in which traffic leaves Microsoft's network for a transit ISP at the POP closest to the storage account, reducing networking costs. It is unsupported for Azure File Sync and AD-joined Azure Files.
- PATH
Parent-child hierarchies in DAX rely on this function. For each row it builds one delimited text value listing the IDs of the row's ancestors, top level first and ending with the row's own ID, which PATHITEM, PATHLENGTH and friends can then pick apart.
Related terms
- AS Path (hub routing preference)
Routing preference for a Virtual WAN hub under which the shortest BGP AS path wins regardless of where the route came from. When local routes tie, ExpressRoute is chosen over site-to-site VPN.
- Microsoft network routing
Default choice of routing preference: traffic is handed onto Microsoft's global network as close to the client as possible, at the nearest point of presence, for optimal performance.