Blob storage is a type of Azure storage service. Blob Storage stores file data. A blob can be any type of text or binary data, such as a document, media file, or application installer. You can use Blob storage to store content such as backups of files, computers, databases, and devices. Blob storage is also referred to as Object storage.
Use the Azure Settings tab of the Configure General Preferences option from the Administration tab to specify the storage settings to be used through the different backups and restores.
In these settings you can specify the following fields:
- Container Name - the name of the Azure container where the new blob will be created and the backup stored. Every Azure blob must reside in a container. The container forms part of the blob name. If no container with the input name exists, a new one will be created. For more information, click here.
- Azure Storage Account Name - the account name of your storage account. Every object that you store in Azure Storage has a unique URL address. The storage account name forms the subdomain of that address. You can find more information on the following link.
- Azure Access Key - you can use any of the access keys provided to your Azure Storage Account. For more information about Azure Keys, click here.
- SubFolder(s) (Optional) - specify where your backup will be stored or restored from. Consider the following situations:
- If the SubFolder field is left empty, the backup file will be saved in the root of the specified container.
- If the SubFolder field is populated with the name of a folder that does not exist on the storage container \ bucket, the folder will be created and the backup file will be saved to the specified Subfolder.
- Multiple SubFolders can be specified by separating each folder with a forward slash: MyFolder/MySubfolder/MyNestedFolder.
- The SubFolder field can contain static values as well as tokens like %instance%, %database%, %backuptype%, %policyguid%,and %timestamp%.
- Sector Type - define the Azure sector type:
- Public - commercial cloud storage solution.
- Government - cloud storage solution offered to US government customers and their partners.
Failed Backup
If the backup fails before creating all blobs and only a couple of blobs are created, these blobs will remain in the container unless you manually delete them.
Network Resiliency
Take into account that if you do not enable the network resiliency settings for your backup operations and the network goes down, the operation fails and no retry is executed. When enabling the network resiliency settings and using Azure Blob for backup operations, only the following parameters are applicable:
- Retry Interval - the waiting period before retrying the backup operation.
- Total retry interval - the total time for retrying the backup operation before stopping it.
In restore operations, the resiliency settings remain enabled.
Naming conventions for containers
Take into account the following naming conventions for your container:
- All letters should be in lowercase.
- The container name should be a valid DNS name.
- The container name should start or end with a letter or number and can contain only letters, numbers, and the dash (-) character.
- Every dash (-) character must be immediately preceded and followed by a letter or number. Consecutive dashes are not permitted in container names.
- Names can be from three to sixty-three characters long.
Naming your SQL Safe backup files on Microsoft Azure blob storage
Take into account the following blob naming rules:
A blob name can contain any combination of characters.
A blob name must be at least one character long and cannot be more than 1,024 characters long.
Blob names are case-sensitive.
The number of subfolders cannot exceed 254.
Avoid filenames that end with a dot (.), a forward slash (/), or a sequence or combination of the two.
The Microsoft Azure Blob service is based on a flat storage scheme, not a hierarchical scheme. However, SQL Safe allows you to specify subfolders that act as a virtual hierarchy. If you store a large number of blobs in your Azure container then it is recommended to utilize subfolders to improve SQL Safe performance.