Explore Cloud Storage with CloudXplorer

I've been working a lot with Azure Storage – creating some cool scripts/functions to demonstrate the use of Azure storage as well as managing my storage across several subscriptions. The lack of tooling has been a bit of a difficulty – the Azure Storage Explorer (on CodePlex: https://azurestorageexplorer.codeplex.com/) works, but I've found it pretty basic. And it fails to do a number of things for me (mainly remove old VHDs created during demos).

Today I found a new product: CloudXplorer, from ClumsyLeaf software. A commercial product (US$59, with larger numbers of licenses becoming cheaper per license). The product does, however both work across Azure Files, Amazon S3 and Google Storage! And it's fast.

After downloading and installing it you need to enter your storage account (and storage account keys) and then it looks something like this:

You can get the free trial from ClumsyLeaf's web site: http://clumsyleaf.com/downloads/cloudxplorer.zip. It runs on Vista and above, and needs .NET 4. And, as I said, you need an azure, S3 or Google storage

del.icio.us Tags: Azure,Azure Storage,CloudXplorer

Updated Azure Module Is Released

I am just back from teaching Azure and Office 365 in Belgium where we used the latest version of the Azure Cmdlets. The new version, 0.8.14 contains a huge number of updates and improvements. The changes include:

• New StorSimple commands in AzureServiceManagement mode.
• Updated HD Insight cmdlets
• New Azure Insights cmdlets in AzureResourceManager mode
• A new cmdlet for Azure VM, Get-AzureVmDSCExtensionStatus to get the DSC status for a VM
• A number of new Azure Automation cmdlets in AzureResourceManager mode

I like that Azure is becoming more DSC aware – I am really excited about seeing DSC being fully implemented in both Windows and Azure.
To get this new version, you can either use the Web Platform Installer (which allows you to install more than just the new module).  Or, you can go to Github, and get the stand-alone version from the Azure-PowerShell repository (http://az412849.vo.msecnd.net/downloads04/azure-powershell.0.8.14.msi). The latter is an MSI that installs the updated module. Note that if you are running PowerShell already, then the MSI could ask you to either close those windows, or reboot to get the new module fully installed.
This update shows the sheer pace at which Azure is being updated. I find it staggering when you compare it to some earlier MS development cycles (e.g. the 5 years between NT4 and Windows 2000). The really good news is that Azure is getting richer and better by the month. The downside is the sheer difficulty IT Pros may have keeping up with this rapid pace of change. All in all, I think this is really not a bad problem to have!

del.icio.us Tags: GitHub,Azure,Azure Module,Azure PowerShell

Azure Premium Storage

Before Christmas, Microsoft added a bunch of new features to Azure. One that I've only really just noticed was Premium Storage. Azure provides several types of cloud storage (blogs, queues, tables and files) – with the files storage still in preview. Premium storage too is in Preview.

The basic idea if Azure Storage is that you can store your data in the cloud: whether that data is the VHD drive for an Azure VM, a message queue used to hook up different parts of an application, or whatever. Azure storage is a fundamental building block you use to create cloud computing systems based on Azure.

The new premium storage feature now allows you to store this data on SSD disks. This new storage option provides higher performance and lower disk latency. Not only that, but, at least during the preview, Microsoft offered three types of SSD: P10, P20, and P30. These disks are 128gb, 512gb and 1tb respectively. The bigger disk provide more IOPS and greater throughput.

I look forward to playing a bit more with Premium Storage! I suppose it goes without saying: you can easily use Azure PowerShell cmdlets to manage this storage. I hope to generate a few scripts to demonstrate this!

For more details on Azure Storage, See Sirius Kuttiyan's recent blog post. For fuller details on Azure Storage pricing, see: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/pricing/details/storage/. Premium storage is still in preview, and is offered at a bit of a discount. The 128GB  P10 disk, for example, is £5.47/month, while the 1TB P30 is £37.54/month.

del.icio.us Tags: Azure,Azure Storage,Premium Storage

Azure Storage Architecture

I've been doing a lot of work, recently, around Azure – and one interesting aspect is Azure Storage. Azure Storage enables you to store and retrieve large amounts of unstructured data, such as documents and media files with Azure Blobs; structured nosql based data with Azure Tables; reliable messages with Azure Queues and use SMB-based Azure Files that can help to migrate on-premises applications to the cloud. The first three of these feature have been offered by Azure for several years, while Azure Files is newer. Azure files is still in preview – and you can learn a bit more about the File Service from the Azure Strorage team's team blog.

As an aside, the Azure module you can download enables you to manage Azure Storage features from PowerShell. The cmdlet set is rich (and richer with Azure Files) with 48 storage related cmdlets in the latest version of the Azure Cmdlets (0.8.12). These cmdlets are fairly easy to use, but I've found the error handling is a bit harder than with equivalent on-premise cmdlets. Many errors, for instance, return little useful information to help you troubleshoot. There is room for improvement – and knowing the Azure team, will come as fast as they can get to it!

In order both to scale and to provide great recovery from failure, the architecture of Azure storage is a bit more complex than the NTFS file system we are used to. Although it's now a couple of years old, the Azure team also published a detailed description of the Azure Storage Architecture. It's true level 400 stuff – and you can find it here. The paper does not cover the Azure File Service – hopefully Microsoft will provide an update to this great white paper at some point in the future.

If you are planning on architecting solutions utilising Azure Storage, this paper is one you should read and absorb. And, in due course, apply when you implement your solution(s)!

del.icio.us Tags: Azure,Azure Storage