About Me
Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)
1 Manage Azure identities and governance
1-1 Manage Azure AD objects
1-2 Manage role-based access control (RBAC)
1-3 Manage subscriptions and governance
2 Implement and manage storage
2-1 Manage storage accounts
2-2 Manage blob storage
2-3 Manage disk storage
2-4 Manage file shares
2-5 Implement Azure Backup
3 Deploy and manage Azure compute resources
3-1 Manage virtual machines (VMs)
3-2 Manage VM extensions
3-3 Manage virtual machine scale sets (VMSS)
3-4 Manage Azure App Services
3-5 Manage Azure Container Instances (ACI)
3-6 Manage Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
4 Configure and manage virtual networking
4-1 Manage Azure virtual networks
4-2 Manage network security groups (NSGs)
4-3 Manage Azure DNS
4-4 Manage Azure load balancers
4-5 Manage Azure Application Gateway
4-6 Manage Azure VPN Gateway
4-7 Manage Azure ExpressRoute
4-8 Manage Azure Traffic Manager
4-9 Manage Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN)
5 Monitor and back up Azure resources
5-1 Monitor resources using Azure Monitor
5-2 Implement and manage Azure Backup
5-3 Implement and manage Azure Site Recovery
5-4 Implement and manage Azure Security Center
5-5 Implement and manage Azure Update Management
Manage Disk Storage in Azure

Manage Disk Storage in Azure

Key Concepts

Azure Disks

Azure Disks are block-level storage volumes managed by Azure and used with Azure Virtual Machines (VMs). They provide persistent storage for VMs, meaning the data stored on these disks remains even if the VM is stopped or deallocated. Azure Disks can be attached to VMs to serve as operating system (OS) disks or data disks.

Think of Azure Disks as the hard drives of your virtual machines. Just like physical hard drives, they store data that can be accessed by the VM when needed.

Disk Types

Azure offers different types of disks to cater to various performance and cost requirements:

Choosing the right disk type is crucial for optimizing performance and cost. For example, a development environment might use Standard HDDs for cost efficiency, while a production database server might require Premium SSDs for high performance.

Disk Encryption

Disk encryption ensures that data stored on Azure Disks is secure and protected from unauthorized access. Azure provides two main encryption options:

Encryption is like locking your physical hard drive with a password. It ensures that even if the disk is lost or stolen, the data remains inaccessible without the encryption key.

Disk Snapshots

Disk snapshots are read-only, full copies of Azure Disks at a specific point in time. They are useful for backing up data, creating new disks, or restoring disks to a previous state. Snapshots can be taken for both OS and data disks.

Imagine snapshots as taking a photograph of your disk at a specific moment. This photograph can be used to recreate the disk's state at that exact time, which is invaluable for data recovery and testing.

Disk Performance Tiers

Azure Disks support different performance tiers, allowing you to adjust the performance of your disks without changing the disk type. Performance tiers range from P1 (lowest) to P80 (highest) for Premium SSDs and E1 (lowest) to E30 (highest) for Standard SSDs.

This feature is akin to adjusting the speed settings on a car. You can temporarily boost performance for a critical workload and then revert to a lower tier to save costs when the workload is less demanding.

Conclusion

Managing disk storage in Azure involves understanding and utilizing Azure Disks, selecting the appropriate disk types, ensuring data security through encryption, leveraging snapshots for backup and recovery, and optimizing performance with performance tiers. By mastering these concepts, you can effectively manage and secure your Azure storage resources.

© 2024 Ahmed Baheeg Khorshid. All rights reserved.