Opting to keep your data stored on Azure comes with many benefits such as automated backup and recovery, replication across the world, encryption options, and security and platform integration. Azure has three types of data storage options available.
Structured
- SQL database
- MySQL database
- Postgres database
I will cover some key advantages for hosting SQL databases but other structured databases will offer similar benefits. One benefit is flexible pricing by choosing to use the vCore or DTUs pricing model. You can learn more about the two pricing models available here. You can also auto scale resources based on need. There are also different service tiers available for different workloads.
Unstructured
- blob storage
- file storage
- disk storage
Azure Storage offers highly available, massively scalable, durable, and secure storage for a variety of data objects in the cloud. File storage is good for migration scenarios. Files saved via Azure Storage can be accessed via REST protocols. Blob storage is similar to file storage but used for storing vast amounts of unstructured data. Blob storage has hot, cold, and archive access tiers. Hot storage is the most expensive for storing but has the cheapest access cost. Cold storage has a cheaper storage cost than hot storage but a higher data access cost. The archive tier has the cheapest storage cost and highest data access cost and data is offline. Depending on the specific use case you can make an argument for using each tier in different scenarios.
Semi-structured
- Cosmos database
Azure Cosmos is a NoSQL globally distributed, multi-model database service built with scaling in mind. Cosmos has very fast response times if partitions are chosen wisely. A partition key is essential for distributing data in cosmos efficiently for querying.
As you can see there are several options available in Azure to fit the storage needs for your organization or upcoming project.
