Life cycle management and access tiers

Question

When I am reviewing microsoft docs I understand that Life cycle management policies applies to Blob storage(standard)account,GPV2 (standard)storage account and block blob storage account(premium)type. And access tiers applies to Blob storage(standard)account,GPV2(standard)storage account. If access tiers are not supported in Block Blob storage accounts, How can Life cycle management policy is able to move the blobs between hot,cool and archive in block blob accounts? If this is possible, why cant access tier feature is not defined in block blob accounts?

Answer 1

@Manchukonda Kranthi Kumar Firstly, Apologies for the delay response!

You are correct that Azure Blob storage offers lifecycle management policies and access tiers, but there is a distinction between them and their applicability to different types of storage accounts.

Note: Data stored in a premium block blob storage account cannot be tiered to hot, cool, cold or archive by using Set Blob Tier or using Azure Blob Storage lifecycle management. To move data, you must synchronously copy blobs from the block blob storage account to the hot tier in a different account using the Put Block From URL API or a version of AzCopy that supports this API. The Put Block From URL API synchronously copies data on the server, meaning the call completes only once all the data is moved from the original server location to the destination location.

Regarding your question, while access tiers are not supported in block blob storage accounts, lifecycle management policies can still move blobs between hot, cool, and archive tiers in these accounts. This is because lifecycle management policies are implemented at the storage account level, not at the blob level. The policy is applied to the entire storage account, and it can move blobs between tiers based on the specified conditions.

The reason why access tiers are not defined in block blob storage accounts is because block blob storage accounts are optimized for high-performance scenarios, such as big data analytics and high-performance computing. These scenarios typically require fast access to data, so access tiers are not necessary. Instead, block blob storage accounts provide other features, such as premium performance and low latency.

Lifecycle Management Policies: Lifecycle management policies allow you to define rules that automatically move or delete blobs based on their age or other criteria. This feature is available for Blob storage (standard) accounts, GPv2 (general-purpose v2) accounts, and block blob storage accounts (premium). With lifecycle management policies, you can transition blobs between the hot, cool, and archive tiers within these supported storage accounts.

Access Tiers: Access tiers, on the other hand, determine the availability and cost of storing blobs in Azure Blob storage. However, access tiers are only applicable to Blob storage (standard) accounts and GPv2 (general-purpose v2) accounts. Access tiers allow you to choose between hot and cool tiers, where hot tier offers higher availability and slightly higher storage costs, while cool tier offers lower storage costs but with slightly higher data retrieval costs.

Regarding block blob storage accounts, it is important to note that they are designed specifically for high-performance scenarios with premium storage capabilities. Block blob storage accounts do not support access tiers because they do not have the same cost and availability characteristics as Blob storage (standard) or GPv2 accounts. Block blob storage accounts are optimized for transactional workloads, whereas access tiers are more relevant for general-purpose object storage scenarios.

While access tiers are not available in block blob storage accounts, you can still use lifecycle management policies to manage the lifecycle of blobs within these accounts. Lifecycle management policies can be configured to transition blobs within the same block blob storage account based on age, allowing you to move them between different tiers (hot, cool, archive) if desired.

In summary, lifecycle management policies provide the capability to manage blob lifecycles, including transitions between different storage tiers, within Blob storage (standard), GPv2, and block blob storage accounts. However, access tiers are only applicable to Blob storage (standard) and GPv2 accounts, as they offer different cost and availability options that may not align with the characteristics of block blob storage accounts.

Please let us know if you have any further queries. I’m happy to assist you further.

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Answer 2

@Manchukonda Kranthi Kumar

GPv2 Account: In a GPv2 storage account, moving a blob from the "Hot" to "Cool" tier involves changing the access tier property of the blob. This operation is generally fast and has low latency. The transition from "Hot" to "Cool" tier within a GPv2 account typically takes effect within a few minutes.

Block Blob Account: In a Block Blob storage account, moving a blob from "Hot" to "Cool" tier also involves changing the access tier property. However, this operation may have a slightly longer transition time compared to GPv2 accounts. The exact time can vary depending on factors such as the size of the blob and network conditions. Generally, it can take up to several hours for the tier change to fully complete.

When rehydrating a blob from the archive tier, you can choose either a standard or high rehydration priority option. Each offers different retrieval latencies and costs. For more information, see Overview of blob rehydration from the archive tier.

For more information about redundancy configurations in Azure Storage, see Azure Storage redundancy.

Pricing and billing

All storage accounts use a pricing model for block blob storage that is based on a blob's tier. Keep in mind the billing considerations described in the following sections.

For more information about pricing for block blobs, see Block blob pricing.

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Storage capacity costs**

In addition to the amount of data stored, the cost of storing data varies depending on the access tier. The per-gigabyte capacity cost decreases as the tier gets cooler.

Data access costs

Data access charges increase as the tier gets cooler. For data in the cool, cold and archive access tier, you're charged a per-gigabyte data access charge for reads.

Transaction costs

A per-transaction charge applies to all tiers and increases as the tier gets cooler.

In addition to the amount of data stored, the cost of storing data varies depending on the access tier. The per-gigabyte capacity cost decreases as the tier gets cooler.

For more information, please refer to this article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/access-tiers-overview?tabs=azure-portal

Please let us know if you have any further queries. I’m happy to assist you further.

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Please do not forget to "Accept the answer” and “up-vote” wherever the information provided helps you, this can be beneficial to other community members.