Azure Data Lake Storage to the Rescue!

Paul Turley Feb 25, 2019

Do you have issues with data storage space? In today’s post I’d like to share a scenario that may be familiar to you and how Azure Data Lake Storage can help.

I was recently on a project where we were importing hundreds of text files and new data is being added every month. And as time goes on, it’s taking more and more storage space and I need to be able to share that data with other developers.

I started out with using an external hard drive on a laptop for backup purposes. Then I wanted cloud redundancy, so I moved that into my OneDrive for Business. Unfortunately, I then exceeded my OneDrive quota because the data is growing and growing, and it’s becoming expensive to manage that data.

Azure Data Lake Storage to the rescue! Here’s how it works:

I start out in my Azure portal and I configured a storage account for Azure Data Lake Storage.
There are many options here:
- I can manage the performance level for my storage account.
- I can enable secure transfer so I can encrypt that data and protect it for security purposes.
- I can also designate if I want hot or cool storage. This decides whether I am storing this data for archive purposes or if I need quick access to it on the fly.
- We also have geo redundancy, which means the data is stored in multiple Azure data centers throughout the world.
- A new option you’ll see is the Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2. The Gen 2 options allows you to provide hierarchical descriptions over your data. You can also define referential constraints over files, trading them to some degree like a relational database.

Want to hear the best thing about Azure Data Lake Storage? In the pricing model, the least expensive option is a 10^th of a penny per gigabyte per month. Compare that to your other storage options and think about the fact that you get the piece of mind of storing your data in the cloud where it’s always going to be there for less than a penny per month!

There are other options where the price goes up, but still very affordable.

Here’s the bottom line on your storage problem, think about putting it in Azure Data Lake Storage where you can access it from a variety of Azure services, and you can always get those back to move to a different storage mechanism later if needed.

If you have questions about Azure Data Lake Storage or anything Azure related, you’re in the right place. Our team of experts is here to help you take your business from good to great, no matter where you are on your Azure or cloud journey.