Question

Difficulty: EasyAzure Storage Accounts, Blob, Disk, Files, and Storage Tiers

A company plans to store archival data in Azure Blob Storage. The data will be accessed less than once a year, and a retrieval latency of several hours is acceptable. The company wants to minimize storage costs. Which storage access tier should they use?

  1. The Archive tier, which offers the lowest storage cost but requires data rehydration before it can be read.Answer
  2. B
    The Cool tier, because data placed in the Archive tier is permanently locked and can never be retrieved.
  3. C
    The Archive tier, with the expectation that Microsoft will manage and patch the operating system of the storage account host to enable direct reads.
  4. D
    The Archive tier, but they must apply a ReadOnly resource lock to the storage account to authorize user read access.

Answer

The Archive tier, which offers the lowest storage cost but requires data rehydration before it can be read.
The Archive tier is designed for data that is rarely accessed and can tolerate retrieval latency. It offers the lowest storage costs among all Azure Blob Storage tiers, but the data must be rehydrated to a Hot or Cool tier before it can be read.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the data access frequency and retrieval time tolerance.
The scenario specifies that the data is accessed less than once a year and a retrieval time of several hours is acceptable.
This matches the characteristics of the Archive access tier, which is optimized for rarely accessed data with high latency tolerance.
2
Determine the most cost-effective storage tier that meets these requirements.
The Archive tier offers the lowest storage cost compared to the Hot and Cool tiers.
Choosing the Archive tier minimizes storage costs for long-term data retention.
3
Understand the access mechanism for the chosen tier.
Data in the Archive tier cannot be read directly and must be rehydrated to the Hot or Cool tier first.
This is a technical requirement of the Archive access tier in Azure Blob Storage.

Key Concept

Azure Storage access tiers (Hot, Cool, Cold, Archive) and their access requirements.
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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