Azure Storage Interview Questions and Answers

1. What is Azure Storage and the type of storage available in Azure?

Microsoft Azure Storage is a cloud storage solution that provides secure storage for various data types including blobs, files, queues, tables, and disks.

Blob Storage
File Storage
Queue Storage
Table Storage
Disk Storage

2. What is Blob Storage used for?

Blob Storage is used for storing large amounts of unstructured data such as images, videos, documents, and backups.

3. What is the difference between Block Blob and Page Blob?

Block Blob is Optimized for streaming and storing cloud objects whereas Page Blob is used for frequent read/write operations, typically for VM disks.

4. What is Azure File Storage?

Azure file storage is a managed file share service that can be accessed using the standard SMB protocol from Windows, Linux, or macOS.

5. What is Azure Table Storage?

Azure table storage is a NoSQL store that provides a key/attribute store with a schema-less design. It is good for structured, non-relational data.

6. What is the use of Azure Queue Storage?

Azure Queue Storage is used for messaging and communication between application components in a decoupled manner.

7. What is a storage account in Azure?

In Azure, a storage account is a container with a unique namespace and billing boundary for all storage services such as blobs, files, queues, tables, disks.

8. What is the default replication strategy for Azure Storage?

The default replication strategy is locally Redundant Storage (LRS), but others include Zone-Redundant (ZRS), Geo-Redundant (GRS), and Read-Access GRS (RA-GRS).

9. Is data secured in Azure Storage?

Yes, data is secured in Azure Storage using:

Encryption at rest (AES-256)
Encryption in transit (HTTPS)
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Shared Access Signature (SAS)

10. What is Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2?

Azure data lake storage is optimized for big data analytics and combines features of Azure Blob Storage and Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS).

11. How does Azure Blob Lifecycle Management work?

Azure blob Lifecycle management automatically transitions blobs to cooler tiers or deletes them based on conditions like last modified date or blob age.

12. What is a Shared Access Signature (SAS)?

SAS is a URI that grants restricted access rights to Azure Storage resources without exposing the account key.

13. What is the difference between Service SAS and Account SAS?

Service SAS grants access to a specific service e.g., Blob or File and Account SAS grants access to multiple services within a storage account.

14. What is Soft Delete in Azure Blob Storage?

Soft delete allows recovery of blobs that were deleted, within a retention period.

15. What are Azure Storage Tiers?

Azure storage tiers are:

Hot: Frequent access
Cool: Infrequent access
Archive: Rare access

16. How do you implement custom domain mapping for Azure Blob Storage?

To implement custom domain mapping, configure a CNAME record in DNS and enable the custom domain on the Azure portal.

17. What is Immutable Blob Storage?

Immutable blob storage allows setting write-once, read-many (WORM) policies for regulatory and audit requirements.

18. How is versioning implemented in Azure Blob Storage?

When versioning is enabled, previous versions of blobs are saved automatically on overwrite or delete.

19. What is the difference between Azure Blob Storage and Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2?

ADLS Gen2 is built on top of Blob Storage but adds hierarchical namespace and optimizations for big data.

20. How do you upload a file to Azure Blob Storage using Azure Portal?

To upload a file to Azure Blob storage, Go to the Blob container → Click “Upload” → Choose file → Upload.

21. How do you mount Azure File Storage on a Windows machine?

Mount Azure file storage by using the UNC path and credentials provided in the Azure portal, then map it using net use command.

22. How can you programmatically access Azure Blob Storage from C#?

To programmatically access Azure Blob Storage, Use the Azure.Storage.Blobs SDK, authenticate with SAS or managed identity, then upload/download.

23. How to configure lifecycle management for blobs via ARM template or Bicep?

Configure lifecycle management for blobs by defining rules in the template under Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/managementPolicies.

24. How can you back up Azure Storage data?

The steps to backup Azure Storage data are:

Enable soft delete and Use Azure Backup
Copy blobs to a secondary storage account

25. How to generate a SAS token for a specific file?

To generate a SAS token, Use Azure Storage Explorer or code using BlobSasBuilder in Azure SDK.

26. How do you monitor and troubleshoot Azure Storage operations?

To monitor and troubleshoot Azure Storage operations, Enable Storage analytics logging and metrics and Use Azure Monitor and Log Analytics.

27. How to transfer large datasets to Azure Storage efficiently?

To transfer large datasets to Azure storage, Use AzCopy, Azure Data Box and Azure Import/Export Service.

28. How do you access a private container in Blob Storage from a web app?

Use SAS or Azure Managed Identity to access private containers in blob storage and Store SAS in Key Vault and fetch securely in code.

29. How to move blobs from Hot tier to Archive tier automatically?

Configure blob lifecycle management rules based on the last modified date to move blobs from hot tier to Archive tier automatically.

30. What are the types of storage accounts?

General-purpose v2 (recommended)
General-purpose v1 (legacy)
Blob storage (legacy)
BlockBlobStorage
FileStorage

31. What are the Azure Storage replication options and explain about LRS and GRS?

LRS (Locally Redundant Storage)
ZRS (Zone Redundant Storage)
GRS (Geo Redundant Storage)
RA-GRS (Read-Access Geo-Redundant Storage)
GZRS (Geo-zone Redundant Storage)

LRS: Locally Redundant Storage keeps three copies of data within a single data center.

GRS: Geo-Redundant Storage replicates data to a secondary region hundreds.

32. How is data secured in Azure Storage?

Data is encrypted at rest using Storage Service Encryption (SSE), and transit encryption uses HTTPS. SAS is a URI that grants restricted access to Azure Storage resources without exposing the account key.

33. What is Azure Table Storage and Immutable Blob Storage?

Azure table storage is a NoSQL key-value store that is schema-less and used for structured, non-relational data.
Immutable Blob Storage allows setting up WORM (Write Once, Read Many) policies on blobs for legal and regulatory compliance.

34. How does geo-replication work in Azure Storage?

In Azure Storage, Data is replicated asynchronously to a paired secondary region to maintain availability during outages.

35. What are Azure Storage Access Keys and Can we restrict access to storage accounts using firewalls and virtual networks?

Azure Storage Access keys allow full access to storage account resources and each account has two keys for key rotation. We can restrict access to storage accounts by configuring network rules based on IPs or VNets.

36. What is the maximum size of a blob in Azure Blob Storage?

Block blob: Up to 190.7 TiB (with large block support).
Append blob: Up to Append limits (~195 GiB).
Page blob: Up to 8 TiB.

37. What are the pricing factors for Azure Storage?

Storage type (Blob, File, Disk, etc.)
Access tier (Hot, Cool, Archive)
Redundancy (LRS, GRS, etc.)
Operations performed (read/write/list)
Data transfer (ingress is free, egress is charged)

38. Can you mount Azure Blob Storage as a drive? How do you handle concurrency in Azure Blob Storage?

Azure Blob storage cannot be mounted directly as a drive but you can mount Azure Blob Storage using Blobfuse (Linux) or Azure Blob NFS 3.0 protocol (preview/GA). To handle concurrency, use ETags and access conditions to avoid overwriting changes made by others simultaneously.

39. What is soft delete in Azure Storage?

Soft delete protects data by keeping deleted blobs or file shares in a recoverable state for a configurable retention period.

40. What is Azure Archive Storage?

Azure Archive Storage is a low-cost, long-term storage tier for data that is rarely accessed and can tolerate high latency for retrieval.

41. What are naming rules for Azure Storage accounts?

Must be between 3–24 characters.
Lowercase letters and numbers only.
Must be globally unique.

42. How do you access Azure Storage securely from a VM or App Service?

Access the Azure storage securely using managed Identity to grant secure, identity-based access without using storage account keys or SAS tokens.

43. What is the role of Azure Key Vault in Storage security?

Azure Key Vault is used to manage and rotate encryption keys for Azure Storage accounts using customer-managed keys (CMK).

44. How does Azure Storage support big data analytics?

Azure Storage supports big data analytics via Data Lake Storage Gen2, which integrates with tools like HDInsight, Databricks, and Synapse Analytics. It offers high throughput and hierarchical file systems.

45. What is the hierarchical namespace in Azure Data Lake Gen2?

Hierarchical namespace organizes files and directories in a tree-like structure, enabling atomic file operations and improved performance for analytics workloads.

46. How does Azure Storage support big data analytics?

Azure Storage supports big data analytics via Data Lake Storage Gen2 that offers high throughput and hierarchical file systems. It integrates with tools like HDInsight, Databricks, and Synapse Analytics.

47. What is Azure Storage lifecycle management policy?

Azure Storage lifecycle management policy is a rule-based policy that automates blob tiering, archiving, or deletion based on data age or access patterns.

48. What are immutable policies in blob storage?

Immutable policies enforce write-once-read-many (WORM) storage for regulatory compliance and once set, blobs cannot be modified or deleted.

49. What is the hierarchical namespace in Azure Data Lake Gen2?

Hierarchical namespace organizes files and directories in a tree-like structure. It enables atomic file operations and improved performance for analytics workloads.

50. What is the role of Azure Key Vault in Storage security?

Azure Key Vault is used to manage and rotate encryption keys for Azure Storage accounts using customer-managed keys (CMK).

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Azure Storage Interview Questions and Answers