This page provides a guide for configuring an Azure Storage service as a Storage Target in Verba.

The Azure file storage can be accessed with two different methods:

• File shares in the cloud using the standard Server Message Block (SMB) Protocol. Both SMB 2.1 and SMB 3.0 are supported
• Files can be accessed through a REST API

Configuration guidance is shown for both options below.

The advantages of using Azure Storage are:

• Highly scalable: Storage keeps pace with your growing data needs, delivering petabytes of storage for the largest scenarios. Whether you're building modern applications or a high-scale big data application, Storage can handle it.
• Data is accessible globally: Storage is available in a lot of regions, letting you store your data where it makes the most business sense. Scale up or across data centers as needed, and be closer to your customers for faster access and better performance.
• Durable and highly available: Storage automatically replicates your data and maintains multiple copies—either in a single region or globally with geo-redundancy—to help guard against unexpected hardware failures.

For a general description of Verba Storage targets, please refer to the Storage targets article.

Accessing Azure using the SMB Protocol

Creating an Azure Storage using Network Storage Target

Follow the steps below to create a new Verba Storage target for Azure Storage: 

Step 1 - Visit the Microsoft Documentation and create your file share. You should get an address in the following format: 

\\<storage-account-name>.file.core.windows.net\<share-name>

Step 2 - Open the Verba Web interface then select Data > Storage Targets from the top menu.

Step 3 - Click on Add New Storage Target

Step 4 - Fill in the configuration form according to the requirements in the following table.

\\<storage-account-name>.file.core.windows.net\<share-name>

<storage-account-name>

Step 5 - Click Save to save the settings

Creating an Azure Storage by mounting it as a Drive

Follow the steps below to create a new Verba Storage target for Azure Storage: 

Step 1 - Visit the Microsoft Documentation and create your file share. You should get a mount command in the following format: 

net use <drive-letter>: \\<storage-account-name>.file.core.windows.net\<share-name> /u:<storage-account-name> <storage-account-key>

Step 2 - Persist your storage account credentials for the virtual machine. Before mounting to the file share, first persist your storage account credentials on the virtual machine. This step allows Windows to automatically reconnect to the file share when the virtual machine reboots. To persist your account credentials, run the cmdkey command from the PowerShell window on the virtual machine. Replace <storage-account-name> with the name of your storage account, and <storage-account-key> with your storage account key:

cmdkey /add:<storage-account-name>.file.core.windows.net /user:<storage-account-name> /pass:<storage-account-key>

Step 3 - Mount the file share using the persisted credentials. Once you have a remote connection to the virtual machine, you can run the net use command to mount the file share, using the following syntax. Replace <storage-account-name> with the name of your storage account, and <share-name> with the name of your File storage share:

net use <drive-letter>: \\<storage-account-name>.file.core.windows.net\<share-name>

Since you persisted your storage account credentials in the previous step, you do not need to provide them with the net use command. If you have not already persisted your credentials, then include them as a parameter passed to the net use command, as shown in the first step.

Step 4 - Open the Verba Web interface then select Policies > Storage Targets from the top menu.

Step 5 - Click on Add New Storage Target

Step 6 - Fill in the configuration form according to the requirements in the following table.

Step 4 - Click Save to save the settings

After this point, the Storage target is available for use by other Verba components (e.g. Data management policies).

Accessing Azure through a REST API

Creating an Azure Storage target

Follow the steps below to create a new Verba storage target for Azure Storage:

Step 1 - Open the Verba Web interface then select Data > Storage targets from the top menu.

Step 2 - Click on Add New Storage Target

Step 3 - Fill in the configuration form according to the requirements in the following table.

Step 4 - Click Save to save the settings

After this point, the Storage target is available for use by other Verba components (e.g. Data management policies).