In the next few posts I am going to take Azure file service for a test drive to see what you can and cannot do with it. My aim is to have a proper exploration of the capabilities and short comings in one place instead of scouring the Internet to try and determine if you can/should use it in your projects once it goes generally available.
What is Azure file service?
Azure file service is a new capability of Azure storage to expose a file share over SMB 2.1. It is platform as a service, saving you the trouble of maintaining VMs. It is currently in preview, to enable it for your account head over to http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/preview/ . You can only create shares on storage accounts created after file service was activated on your account. You will not be able to create a share on storage accounts that existed before you activated the file service preview.
What works
- Sharing files between VMs over SMB 2.1, your file share is accessible from Windows and Linux machines or any other OS implementing SMB 2.1. You can use windows file commands and API calls to access the share just like a normal windows file share.
- You get the availability, durability, scalability and redundancy of Azure storage.
- The REST API supports the usual file operations and the storage libraries in Azure SDK is a friendlier way to interact with the file share programmatically. Using the API is one way to access your file share on premise but there are others which I will look at and test later.
I think the most common use case will be sharing files between VMs and that is working at the moment. File service is cheaper than running a VM to share files as you pay per GB used, but remember this is in preview and the price will change.
What does not work (yet)
- The SMB share cannot be mounted in Azure websites but the share can be mounted in web roles and worker roles. I will post more on this in the future and take it for a test drive myself.
- The SMB share cannot be mounted on premise, but instead the API can be used to access it. There is a way using WebDAV and mounting it as a local share that I will look into later on.
- The Azure storage emulator (v3.2 at the time) does not support file service, you have to test against your storage account.
- Active directory authentication is not supported instead access is controlled by storage keys.
- The SMB share is only accessible by VMs in the same region.
Keep in mind file service is in preview and most of these limitations will hopefully be addressed in the future.
In my next post I will show you how to get started by creating a file share.
