What is the best strategy for using Windows Azure as a file storage system - with http download capabilities

Question

I need to store multiple files that users upload, and then provide these users with the capability of accessing their files via http. There are two key considerations: - Storage (which is my primary concern here) - Security (which let's leave aside for now)

The question is: What is the most cost efficient and performant way of storing all these files and giving access to them later? I believe the answer is: - Store files within Azure Storage Account, and have a key that references them in an SQL Azure database.

I am correct on this?

Is a blob storage flat? Or can I create something like folders inside it to better organize my files?

Answer 1

The idea of using SQL Azure to store metadata for your blobs is a pretty common scenario, which allows you to take advantage of SQL for searching, and blobs for storage.

Blobs are organized by container. So you'd have something like:

http://mystorage.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/myfile.doc

You can also simulate a hierarchy using a delimiter, but in reality there's just container plus blob.

If you keep the container or blob private, the user would either have to go through your web front end (or web service), or you'd have to provide them with a special URL with a Shared Access Signature appended, which is a time-limited URL.

Answer 2

I would recommend you to take a look at BlobShare Sample which is a simple file sharing application that demonstrates the storage services of the Windows Azure Platform, together with the authentication and authorization capabilities of Access Control Service (ACS). The full sample code is located at following link:

http://blobshare.codeplex.com/

You can use this sample code immediately, just by adding proper reference to your Windows Azure Account credentials. The best thing with this sample is that you can provide blob access directly through Access Control Services. You can also modify the code to add SAS support as well as blob download from public containers. Once you have it working and understood the concept you can tweak to make it the way you would want.