One of the key elements in the AZ-304 certification provided by Azure is the storage tiers. Data is an essential ingredient for any production system. Handling the data and manipulating and processing the data is crucial to keep the production systems alive. All the data present in the application might not be helpful, as few might have to be archived, as they remain unused for a longer time. How the data stored in the system is managed is dependent on the storage tiers.

1. Azure storage tiers:
2. Azure provides and supports three types of storage,
3. Hot access tier
4. Cool access tier
5. Archive tier

Hot access tier:

As the name denotes, data stored in the tier should be accessed often by the application. In other words, frequent reads and writes occur in this storage tier. Because of this reason, the cost for this storage tier is high compared to the different tiers. Data access is high-speed to support the cause. Hence the data accessing time is very minimal.

Cool access tier:

Less frequently used data gets stored in this storage tier. While frequent read writes happen in the hot access tier, the primary use of this tier is to keep data up to thirty days older. Rarely the data is read and accessed by the application. The cost of using this tier is lower than the previous tier. However, the availability is not the same.

Archive tier:

Archived data is stored on this tier, as they are less frequently used or not used at all by the application. Due to this reason, this is the cheapest tier provided by Azure. This tier generally gets used to store long-term backups, compliance data, and less-used records.

Is switching between tiers possible:

Of course, yes. The developers can switch between any of the tiers from the Azure account, between the hot and cool access tiers. However, the archive tier is only for archiving. Hence it might not be an option to switch to an actively running production system.

Best strategies to handle storage tiers:

Unwanted and unused disks:

When you create a disk in Microsoft Azure, either you get to choose a managed or an unmanaged disk. When the application does not use the disk, this might involve additional storage costs, which you can minimize by removing the unwanted disks.

Accurate sizing of computing and storage:

Based on the size of the application and the anticipated workloads, the accurate scope of the computing power and storage tier has to be arrived at. Appropriate sizing ensures to pay only for what is used. Over-sizing might impact the overall cost, as the costs include unwanted computing power and disks.

Analyze the data and pick the tier:

The application might depend on real-time data or use less frequently used data. Depending on this requirement, you must pick a storage tier between the hot and cool access tiers. If backups are required, then archival tiers as well can be purchased.

Takeaways:

In addition to the storage tiers, understanding the billing model is also the key to reducing operational costs. Opting for a storage tier and managing them is not only dependent on the theoretical knowledge over them but understanding it after hands-on gives more insights on the tiers.