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.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
AZ-104AZ-700SC-500AI-300AZ-900DP-900
Each book explains Storage account in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Azure Storage
You reach this Azure data storage platform through a storage account; it covers blobs (Data Lake Storage included), file shares, queues and tables.
- Event
Table in Log Analytics where entries from Windows event logs are kept.
- BLOB
Short for binary large object: raw binary data, like pictures, audio, video or documents, that only an application can make sense of. Azure keeps these files as blobs in Blob Storage.
- Performance
Routing method in Traffic Manager that directs users to whichever endpoint offers the lowest latency.
- Set
Secret permission in Key Vault for writing secrets; some older material refers to it as Create.
Related terms
- Access keys
Pair of 512-bit keys belonging to a storage account; every account SAS and service SAS is signed with one of them. Once both are regenerated, direct key access and all those SAS tokens stop working.
- AD DS authentication (Azure Files)
Option that domain-joins a storage account to on-premises AD DS, letting synced hybrid users mount its SMB shares using Kerberos. RBAC controls share-level access, while Windows ACLs govern files and folders.
- Allowed storage account SKUs
A built-in Azure Policy that limits the SKUs people may pick for a new storage account. It keeps redundancy and spending in check when a workload has no need for the pricier options.
- Auditing
Azure SQL capability that sends database audit logs to Log Analytics, Event Hubs or a storage account; that account is allowed to be in a different region.
- Automated Backup
Feature of the SQL IaaS Agent extension: SQL Server instances on Azure VMs get backed up into a storage account.
- AzFilesHybrid
Its Join-AzStorageAccount cmdlet registers a storage account with on-premises Active Directory, so file shares on Azure can authenticate AD DS identities.
- Azure Backup reports
Reporting for Azure Backup, fed by diagnostic settings on each vault. Log Analytics workspaces receiving the data may be in any region, whereas a storage account target has to share the vault's region.
- Azure Blob Storage
Azure's service for huge volumes of unstructured objects like documents, pictures, video, backups and logs. A storage account contains containers, which contain blobs, and everything is accessed over HTTPS or HTTP.