The IT staff at Contoso plans to migrate the file share and has asked you to explore options for moving this shared content to Azure.
You discover that Azure Storage offers four types of storage services, depending on the characteristics of the data to be stored.
The following table summarizes these storage services:

Storage Service	Description
Blobs	Blobs typically represent unstructured files such as media content, virtual machine (VM) disks, backups, or logs. Blobs facilitate locking mechanisms, ensuring exclusive access to files, required by IaaS VM disks.
Tables	Tables host semi-structured, non-relational content composed of multiple rows of data. In the context of Azure Table Storage, these rows are called entities. Developers often use table storage as a backend database for App Service or Azure Cloud Services.
Queues	Queues provide temporary storage for messages used by distributed application components to communicate asynchronously. For example, instead of sending a message directly to a destination component, a source component can place the message in a queue. This way, the destination component can process messages on its own schedule without forcing the source component to wait for an acknowledgment.
Files	Like blobs, files allow storing unstructured data. However, their locking mechanism enables file sharing in a way similar to local Windows file shares.

In this unit, you will learn how to use Azure Files.

What is Azure Files?

Azure Files is an Azure service that provides the features of a local file share, with the benefits of a cloud PaaS service, including:

• Serverless deployment: An Azure file share is a fully managed PaaS offering that requires no infrastructure. You don’t have to manage VMs, operating systems, or updates.
• Virtually unlimited storage: A single Azure file share can store up to 100 tebibytes (TiB) of files, and a single file can be up to 4 TiB. Files are organized in a hierarchical folder structure, like on local file servers.
• Data encryption: Data on an Azure file share is encrypted at rest when stored in an Azure datacenter, and in transit over the network.
• Access from anywhere: By default, clients can access Azure file shares from anywhere if they have an Internet connection.
• Use of standard protocols: You can access Azure file shares via SMB, NFS, and HTTP protocols. Clients can connect from Windows, Linux, and macOS devices.
• Integration into an existing environment: You can control access to Azure file shares using Microsoft Entra identities or AD DS identities synchronized with Microsoft Entra ID, ensuring a user experience similar to a local file server.
• Granular file permissions: You can use NTFS file system permissions to control access (and access levels) to files on Azure file shares, just like on local servers.
• Previous versions and backups: You can create snapshots of Azure file shares that integrate with the File Explorer Previous Versions feature. You can also use Azure Backup to back up Azure file shares.
• Optional integration with local file servers via Azure File Sync: Azure file shares can sync with local shares to provide benefits such as faster local access and more free space on local servers through cloud tiering.
• Data redundancy: Data in Azure file shares is replicated across multiple locations within the same Azure datacenter or across multiple Azure datacenters. The replication setting of the Azure Storage account containing the file share controls data redundancy.

The following table shows the redundancy options available for Azure Files:

Redundancy Option	Description
Locally redundant storage (LRS)	Data updates are synchronously replicated to three copies within a single facility in one region. LRS protects against server hardware failures but not against a failure of the entire facility. This is the only option available for Premium storage accounts.
Zone-redundant storage (ZRS)	Data updates are asynchronously replicated to three copies located in separate datacenters within one or two Azure regions. ZRS offers more resilience than LRS but does not protect against failures affecting an entire region.
Geo-redundant storage (GRS)	Data updates are first synchronously replicated within the same region. Then, once the update is complete, they are asynchronously replicated to a secondary region. A predefined pairing between the two regions ensures that data remains within the same geographic area. Data is also synchronously replicated to three copies in each region, for a total of six copies. In case of a failure in the primary region, Azure Storage automatically fails over to the secondary region. GRS offers improved resilience compared to LRS and ZRS.
Geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS)	Data updates are first replicated to three copies across multiple Azure availability zones, protecting against cluster, datacenter, or entire zone failures. Then, once the update is complete, they are asynchronously replicated to another region in the same geographic area. GZRS offers an excellent balance of performance, availability, and disaster recovery, ideal for highly available applications. If a zone becomes unavailable, you can continue to read and write data. In case of a regional outage, GZRS allows continued read access to data.

Azure Files supports two storage tiers: Premium and Standard.

Standard file shares are created in general-purpose storage accounts (GPv2), while premium file shares are created in FileStorage accounts.
Both storage tiers have the attributes described in the following table:

Storage Tier	Description
Premium	Premium file shares store data on SSD disks and are available only in the FileStorage account type. They provide consistently high performance and low latency, available with LRS redundancy and ZRS in certain regions. Not available in all Azure regions.
Standard	Standard file shares store data on HDD disks and are deployed in GPv2 storage accounts. They offer performance suitable for I/O workloads, such as general-purpose file shares and development/test environments. Available with LRS, ZRS, GRS, and GZRS in all Azure regions.

Common Uses of Azure Files

You can use Azure Files in many common scenarios, as described in the following table:

Use	Description
Replace or complement local file servers	Virtually all businesses use file servers. Azure Files can completely replace or complement traditional file servers or NAS devices. With Azure file shares and AD DS authentication, you can migrate data to Azure Files and benefit from high availability and scalability while minimizing client-side changes.
Lift and shift	Azure Files makes it easy to lift and shift applications that expect a file share to store application or user data into the cloud.
Backup and disaster recovery	You can use Azure file shares as storage for backups or disaster recovery to improve business continuity. You can back up your data from existing file servers while preserving configured Windows access control lists (ACLs). Data stored on Azure Files is not affected by disasters that may impact local sites.
Azure File Sync	With Azure File Sync, Azure file shares can be replicated to Windows Server, locally or in the cloud, to improve performance and enable distributed caching of data where it is used.

What is Azure File Sync?

Azure File Sync allows you to centralize your organization’s file shares in Azure Files while maintaining the flexibility, performance, and compatibility of a local file server.

You can also use Azure File Sync to cache Azure file shares on Windows Server machines for fast access near users.
You can use any protocol available on Windows Server to access your data locally, including SMB, NFS, and FTPS.

It is also possible to install Azure File Sync on a Windows file server hosted on a cloud VM.
If the Azure file share is in the same region as your file server, you can enable cloud tiering and set the free space percentage to 99%, ensuring minimal duplication of data.

You can also use any application with your file servers, including those that require NFS protocol support.

Next unit: Configure Azure Files