Azure Storage Best Practices

Overview

Azure Storage provides massively scalable cloud storage for data objects, file systems, messaging, and NoSQL data. This skill covers Blob storage, Queue storage, Table storage, and Azure Files.

MCP Tools Available: When the Azure MCP server is enabled, use these tools for storage operations:

• azure_storage_account_list - List storage accounts in subscription
• azure_storage_container_list - List containers in a storage account
• azure_storage_blob_list - List blobs in a container
• azure_storage_blob_get - Download blob content
• azure_storage_blob_put - Upload blob content

If Azure MCP is not enabled: Prompt the user to enable it via /mcp or run /azure:setup for guided configuration.

Storage Account Best Practices

Naming Conventions

Storage account names must be:

• Between 3-24 characters
• Lowercase letters and numbers only
• Globally unique across all Azure

Recommended pattern: {company}{environment}{purpose}{region} Example: contosoprodsaborageseus

Performance Tiers

Tier	Use Case	IOPS	Latency
Standard	General purpose, backup, archive	Up to 20,000	Milliseconds
Premium	High-performance, databases	Up to 100,000	Sub-millisecond

Select Premium for:

• Production databases
• High-frequency transaction processing
• Real-time analytics

Redundancy Options

Type	Description	Durability
LRS	Local redundant (3 copies in one datacenter)	11 nines
ZRS	Zone redundant (3 copies across zones)	12 nines
GRS	Geo-redundant (6 copies, 2 regions)	16 nines
GZRS	Geo-zone redundant (best durability)	16 nines

Choose based on:

• LRS: Dev/test, easily recreatable data
• ZRS: High availability within region
• GRS/GZRS: Business critical, disaster recovery

Blob Storage

Access Tiers

Tier	Access Frequency	Storage Cost	Access Cost
Hot	Frequent	Highest	Lowest
Cool	Infrequent (30+ days)	Lower	Higher
Cold	Rare (90+ days)	Lower still	Higher still
Archive	Rarely (180+ days)	Lowest	Highest + rehydration

Implement lifecycle management policies to automatically transition blobs between tiers.

Container Organization

Structure containers by:

• Application or service
• Data classification (public, private, confidential)
• Retention requirements

Example structure:

/public-assets          # CDN-served static content
/user-uploads           # User-generated content
/application-logs       # Log files with retention policy
/backups                # Database backups, archive tier

Security Best Practices

1. Use managed identities instead of storage keys when possible
2. Enable soft delete for blob and container recovery
3. Configure CORS only for required origins
4. Use private endpoints for VNet integration
5. Enable versioning for critical data
6. Disable public blob access unless specifically required

Shared Access Signatures (SAS)

Generate SAS tokens with minimal permissions:

• Specify exact permissions needed (read, write, delete, list)
• Set short expiration times
• Use stored access policies for revocability
• Prefer user delegation SAS over account SAS

Queue Storage

Design Patterns

At-least-once processing: Messages may be delivered multiple times. Design handlers to be idempotent.

Visibility timeout: Set based on expected processing time plus buffer. Default is 30 seconds.

Poison message handling: After N failed attempts, move message to dead-letter queue.

Best Practices

1. Keep messages small (<64KB), store large payloads in blob storage
2. Use batch operations for high throughput
3. Implement exponential backoff for retries
4. Monitor queue depth for scaling triggers

Azure Files

Use Cases

• Lift-and-shift applications requiring SMB file shares
• Shared configuration across VMs
• Development environments needing shared storage
• Container persistent volumes

Performance Optimization

1. Use Premium tier for latency-sensitive workloads
2. Enable large file shares for up to 100 TiB capacity
3. Consider Azure File Sync for hybrid scenarios
4. Mount with SMB 3.0 for encryption in transit

Common Operations with MCP

List Storage Accounts

Use azure_storage_account_list to retrieve all storage accounts.
Filter by resource group if needed.

Manage Blobs

1. List containers with azure_storage_container_list
2. List blobs with azure_storage_blob_list
3. Download with azure_storage_blob_get
4. Upload with azure_storage_blob_put

Troubleshooting

Access denied errors:

• Verify managed identity has correct RBAC role
• Check network rules (firewall, VNet)
• Ensure SAS token hasn't expired

Throttling:

• Implement retry with exponential backoff
• Consider partitioning data across accounts
• Upgrade to Premium tier if hitting limits

Cost Optimization

1. Use lifecycle management to move data to cheaper tiers
2. Enable soft delete cautiously - it increases storage costs
3. Delete unused snapshots and old versions
4. Right-size redundancy - don't use GRS for dev environments
5. Monitor with Storage Analytics to identify optimization opportunities

Integration Patterns

Static Website Hosting

Enable static website hosting for SPAs:

1. Enable in storage account settings
2. Upload index.html and error.html
3. Configure custom domain with CDN

Event-Driven Processing

Connect Blob storage to Event Grid:

• Trigger Functions on blob create/delete
• Process uploaded files automatically
• Implement ETL pipelines

Backup Strategy

Implement 3-2-1 backup rule:

• 3 copies of data
• 2 different storage types
• 1 offsite (different region with GRS)

MCP Tool Reference

Ensure Azure MCP server is enabled to use these operations. Check status with /azure:status or enable via /mcp.

Operation	MCP Tool	Description
List accounts	azure_storage_account_list	Get all storage accounts
List containers	azure_storage_container_list	Get containers in account
List blobs	azure_storage_blob_list	Get blobs in container
Get blob	azure_storage_blob_get	Download blob content
Put blob	azure_storage_blob_put	Upload blob content