Mike: Welcome to the case study on file and blob storage.
In this lesson, we'll explore how to apply storage solutions
to real-world scenarios using a fictional company.
So let's introduce our company, Reroute Media Group.
They are a global marketing agency
with offices in multiple countries.
They specialize in managing digital marketing campaigns.
As part of their work,
they handle large volumes of media files,
including images, videos, and documents.
Currently, Reroute Media Group faces several challenges.
They struggle with inefficient file sharing
and collaboration across teams.
They have inconsistent data storage
and management practices,
and increasing storage costs and complexities.
Their goals are to centralize file storage
and improve collaboration,
ensure security and compliance
with the handling of their media,
and optimize storage costs
while also simplifying management.
Now let's take a look
at Reroute Media Group's existing environment.
They have on-premises file servers
scattered across different office locations and geographies,
running on outdated hardware and software
with limited scalability and high maintenance costs.
In terms of cloud storage,
they have ad hoc usage of various cloud storage services,
lacking standardization and governance,
which leads to security and compliance concerns.
Their workstations and devices
consist of a mix of Windows, macOS, and mobile devices,
resulting in inconsistent file access
and synchronization methods.
Lastly, their network connectivity varies in bandwidth
and reliability across locations
with VPN connections for remote access.
Based on Reroute Media Group's challenges and goals,
we can identify several key requirements
for their file and blob storage solution.
Firstly, they need centralized storage
to consolidate files
into a single cloud-based storage solution,
enabling seamless file sharing
and collaboration across teams.
Secondly, scalability and performance are crucial
to accommodate growing data volumes without disruption
and ensure fast and reliable access to files from anywhere.
For security and compliance,
they need to implement granular access controls
and permissions, encryption of data at rest and in transit,
and they need to meet regulatory requirements,
such as GDPR and HIPAA.
Cost optimization is another important factor,
aiming to minimize costs while maintaining performance,
which can be achieved through lifecycle management policies
for archival data.
And lastly, integration and interoperability are necessary
to integrate with existing productivity tools and workflows
and support access from various devices and platforms.
In this slide, we'll map each requirement
to a corresponding solution using Azure Storage Services.
I would encourage you at this point to pause the video,
take a look at this chart,
and see if you can't work
through the different options available
and match requirements to solutions.
I'll give you a hint that there are two solutions
for each of the requirement points.
Welcome back.
I hope you took some time to work through the solutions,
and here we go.
To address the need for centralized file storage,
we can implement Azure Files for SMB-based file sharing
and use Azure Blob Storage
for unstructured data and large files.
For scalability and performance,
leveraging Azure Files Premium tier
for high-performance workloads
and enabling blob storage tiering
for automatic data lifecycle management can help.
To ensure security and compliance,
applying Azure Storage Service Encryption for data at rest,
implementing Entra ID authentication
and RBAC for access control,
and utilizing features like Immutable Blob Storage
and Soft Delete can be effective.
Cost optimization can be achieved
by configuring Azure File Sync
to cache frequently accessed files on-premises,
and using blob storage lifecycle policies
to move data to lower-cost tiers.
Lastly, to address integration and interoperability,
integrating Azure Files with Microsoft Entra Domain Services
for seamless authentication,
and using Azure File Sync for bidirectional synchronization
with on-premises file servers
can provide a smooth experience.
By implementing these solutions,
Reroute Media Group can overcome their challenges,
achieve their goals,
and establish a robust
and efficient file and blob storage infrastructure.
I hope going through a scenario a bit more in depth
has helped to solidify these concepts
of file and blob storage.