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Lifecycle management in your storage account

  • April 11, 2023
  • 4 min read
Cloud and Virtualization Architect. Florent is specializing in public, hybrid, and private cloud technologies. He is a Microsoft MVP in Cloud and Datacenter Management and an MCSE in Private Cloud.
Cloud and Virtualization Architect. Florent is specializing in public, hybrid, and private cloud technologies. He is a Microsoft MVP in Cloud and Datacenter Management and an MCSE in Private Cloud.

One feature that is not very highlighted but that can help you to save money is the Lifecycle management, for your blob datas. The full documentation is available here: Configure a lifecycle management policy – Azure Storage | Microsoft Learn

The lifecycle management policy is very easy to use, and, you can apply many policies in one storage.

In this example, I have a blob storage, with 3 files inside. As you can see, because I just accessed them, they are in hot storage. So here, I will pay approximatively 20€/month/TB. For cool, it will cost 10.44€ and for Archive, 2.86€. As you can see, it is a big difference between Hot and Archive, so use it 😊

Storage account

In your storage account, go to Data Management> Lifecycle management. Add a new rule. In my example, I will apply the rule to all blob:

Go to Data Managemlent > Lifecycle management

If the file has been modified more than 1 day ago, I will move it to cold storage:

If the file has been modified more than 1 day ago, I will move it to cold storage

Cold storage

After one day without modifying files, they have been moved automatically to the cold storage:

After one day without modifying files, they have been moved automatically to the cold storage

I created a new rule to say that if a file has not been modified for five days more, I move it to the archive. If it is a rehydrated file, we wait 7 days:

Add a rule

Here are my 2 rules:

Here are my 2 rules

After 5 days, they have been moved automatically to archive storage, and I will pay less than before 😊

After 5 days, they have been moved automatically to archive storage, and I will pay less than before

You have 2 other options, like deleting the blob or moving to a cool storage, and, moving back to the hot tier if the file has been accessed.

You can also add filters, to apply a rule to a specific folder.

As you can see, Microsoft provides a great feature, for free, to save money, so why not use it? 😊 you just need to create your rules on papers before, and implement them. You can apply them through a policy too, for all of your storages in your tenant.

Hey! Found Florent’s insights useful? Looking for a cost-effective, high-performance, and easy-to-use hyperconverged platform?
Taras Shved
Taras Shved StarWind HCI Appliance Product Manager
Look no further! StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA) is a plug-and-play solution that combines compute, storage, networking, and virtualization software into a single easy-to-use hyperconverged platform. It's designed to significantly trim your IT costs and save valuable time. Interested in learning more? Book your StarWind HCA demo now to see it in action!