Storage
Storage refers to hardware or systems that retain data in a specific location.
Examples:
- HDD: Hard Disk Drive
- SSD: Solid State Drive
- USB / Pen Drive: Portable flash drives
- Memory Card: Portable flash memory
Storage Servers are typically used for:
- Photos
- Videos
- Documents
- Application Data
Cloud Storage
Cloud storage involves saving data on remote servers and accessing it over the internet.
Benefits
- Scalability: Expand storage capacity dynamically at any time.
- High Availability: Data is backed up and accessible with minimal downtime.
- Pay-as-you-go: Pay only for the resources consumed. Key billing metrics include:
- IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second): The number of read/write operations a disk can handle per second.
- Throughput: The data transfer rate per second (e.g., MB/s).
- Backup & Disaster Recovery: Built-in safeguards against data loss and site failures.
Azure Storage Architecture
1. Resource Group
- Location (Region)
- Subscription
2. Storage Account Services
- Blob / Object Storage: For unstructured data.
- File Storage: Fully managed file shares in the cloud.
- Block Storage: Managed disks attached to virtual machines.
AWS Storage Services
- Amazon S3: Object storage.
- Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store): Block storage volumes for EC2 instances.
- Amazon EFS (Elastic File System): Managed network file system.
Storage Redundancy (Azure Example)
- Local (LRS): Copies files within the same Availability Zone (AZ) across different racks (3 copies).
- Zone (ZRS): Copies files across different AZs within the same region (3 copies).
- Geo (GRS): Copies files to a secondary geographic region.
- Geo-Zone (GZRS): Combines zone and geo redundancy across multiple regions and availability zones.
Lab Environment Prerequisites
Cloud Accounts:
- AWS Account
- Azure Account
Local Installations:
Required CLI Tools & Software:
- AWS CLI
- Azure CLI
- Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
- Git
- Windows Terminal
