Forem: Oluwasegun Michael Adesiyan

How to Create a Highly Available Storage Account for a Public Website

Oluwasegun Michael Adesiyan — Wed, 06 May 2026 22:47:02 +0000

Imagine you want to put pictures, documents, or even a small website online so anyone can see it. Microsoft Azure (a cloud service) lets you store files safely and make them available to the public.

Create a storage account with high availability

1.Create a storage account to support the public website
What is a storage account?

Think of it like a digital locker in the cloud where you keep your files. It’s managed by Microsoft Azure and can be accessed from anywhere.

In the portal, search for and select Storage accounts
Select + Create

-For resource group select new. Give your resource group a name and select OK

Select New

New resource group created

Set the Storage account name to publicwebsite. Make sure the storage account name is unique by adding an identifier.

Storage account name publicwebsitemikky created

Take the defaults for other settings.
Select Review and then Create.
Wait for the storage account to deploy, and then select Go to resource

storage account to deploy being validated

Click Create

Deployment in progress

Deployment Complete. Go to Resource

2.This storage requires high availability if there’s a regional outage.
What does high availability mean?

It means your files stay online even if one region (data center) has problems. Azure copies your files to another location.
High availability = your files stay online even if one region has problems.

Azure copies your files to another location.
Additionally, enable read access to the secondary region, Learn more about storage account redundancy

In the storage account, in the Data management section, select the Redundancy blade
Ensure Read-access Geo-redundant storage is selected.
This means your files are backed up in another region.
Review the primary and secondary location information.

3.Information on the public website should be accessible without requiring customers to login (Allow Public Access)
You want people to see your website without logging in.
Public access = anyone can view your files without logging in.

In the storage account, in the Settings section, select the Configuration blade.
Ensure the Allow blob anonymous access setting is Enabled
Blob = file stored in Azure.
Anonymous access = no password needed.

By default, it is disabled

Now enabled

Be sure to Save your changes.

Update

Create a blob storage container with anonymous read access

Container = a folder inside your storage account

1.The public website has various images and documents. Create a blob storage container for the content. Learn more about storage containers.

In your storage account, in the Data storage section, select the Containers blade.
Select + Container
Ensure the Name of the container is public
Select Create.

Storage container successfully created

2.Customers should be able to view the images without being authenticated. Configure anonymous read access for the public container blobs. Learn more about configuring anonymous public access.

Select your public container.
On the Overview **blade, select **Change access level.
Ensure the Public access level is Blob (anonymous read access for blobs only).
Select OK.

Access level successfully changed

Practice uploading files and testing access.

1.For testing, upload a file to the public container. The type of file doesn’t matter. A small image or text file is a good choice

Ensure you are viewing your container.
Select Upload.
Browse to files and select a file. Browse to a file of your choice.
Select Upload.
Close the upload window, Refresh the page and ensure your file was uploaded.

Upload confirmed

2.Determine the URL for your uploaded file. Open a browser and test the URL

Select your uploaded file.
On the Overview tab, copy the URL.
Paste the URL into a new browser tab.
If you have uploaded an image file it will display in the browser. Other file types should be downloaded.

Configure soft delete

1.It’s important that the website documents can be restored if they’re deleted. Configure blob soft delete for 21 days. Learn more about soft delete for blobs.
Soft delete = recycle bin for your files

Go to the Overview blade of the storage account.
On the Properties page, locate the Blob service section
Select the Blob soft delete setting.
Ensure the Enable soft delete for blobs is checked.

Enable soft delete for blob- Checked

Change the Keep deleted blobs for (in days) setting to 21. By default, this is 7 days

Changed to 21 days

Notice you can also Enable soft delete for containers.
Don’t forget to Save your changes.

Saved

Confirmed from the Overview page

2.If something gets deleted, you need to practice using soft delete to restore the files

Navigate to your container where you uploaded a file.
Select the file you uploaded and then select Delete.

Select file uploaded

Select Delete

Select OK to confirm deleting the file.
On the container Overview page, toggle the slider Show deleted blobs. This toggle is to the right of the search box.

Select your deleted file, and use the ellipses on the far right, to **Undelete **the file.
Refresh the container and confirm the file has been restored.

Configure blob versioning

1.It’s important to keep track of the different website product document versions. Learn more about blob versioning.
What is versioning?

It keeps old versions of files when you upload new ones. Useful if you update documents often.
Versioning = keeps old versions of files when you upload new ones.

Go to the Overview blade of the storage account.
In the Properties section, locate the Blob service section.
Select the Versioning setting.
Ensure the Enable versioning for blobs checkbox is checked.
Notice your options to keep all versions or delete versions after.
Don’t forget to Save your changes.

2.As you have time experiment with restoring previous blob versions.

Upload another version of your container file. This overwrites your existing file.
Your previous file version is listed on Show deleted blobs page.

Conclusion

We’ve just:

Created a storage account for your website.

Made it highly available (safe from outages).

Allowed public access without login.

Added safety features like soft delete and versioning.

This setup is perfect for hosting images, documents, or even static websites on Azure — and now you understand every step.

Provide storage for the IT department testing and training

Oluwasegun Michael Adesiyan — Tue, 05 May 2026 06:03:13 +0000

What is Azure Storage? A Simple Guide for Everyone

Have You Ever Run Out of Space on Your Phone?
You know that frustrating moment when your phone says "Storage Full" and you can't take a new photo or download a new app? Now imagine that problem — but for a big company that handles millions of files, customer records, videos, and data every single day.
That's exactly the kind of problem Azure Storage was built to solve.

So, What Is Azure Storage?
Azure Storage is Microsoft's online storage service. Think of it like a giant, super-secure hard drive in the sky — except instead of sitting on your desk, it lives in Microsoft's powerful computers (called servers) spread across the world.
You store your files there. You access them from anywhere. And you never have to worry about running out of space.
In simple terms: Azure Storage = A safe place on the internet to keep your data — whether that's photos, videos, documents, or computer program files.

Create a resource group and a storage account.

Create and deploy a resource group to hold all your project resources. Learn more about resource groups. What is a resource group? Think of it as a folder in Azure where you keep related services together. For example, if you’re building a website, you might have a storage account, a database, and a web app — all grouped in one resource group.

In the Azure portal, search for and select Resource groups
Select + Create
Give your resource group a name. For example, storagerg.
Select a region. Use this region throughout the project
(this is the physical location of Microsoft’s datacenter where your resources will live).
Example: West Europe, East US, etc.
Stick to one region for consistency.
Select Review and create to validate the resource group.
Select Create to deploy the resource group

2.Create and deploy a storage account to support testing and training.
What is a storage account?

It’s like a digital locker in the cloud where you store files, images, or documents. Azure Blob Storage lives inside this account.
Learn more about the types of storage accounts.

In the Azure portal, search for and select Storage accounts.
Select + Create.
On the Basics tab, select your Resource group.
Provide a Storage account name. The storage account name must be unique in Azure
Set the Performance to Standard
Select Review, and then Create.

Configure simple settings in the storage account.

1.The data in this storage account doesn’t require high availability or durability. A lowest cost storage solution is desired.
Redundancy (Data Copies)
Redundancy = how many copies of your data Azure keeps
Learn more about storage account redundancy.

In your storage account, in the Data management section, select the Redundancy blade
Select Locally-redundant storage (LRS) in the Redundancy drop-down.
Choose LRS (Locally Redundant Storage) → keeps 3 copies in one datacenter (lowest cost).
Be sure to Save your changes.

-Refresh the page and notice the content only exists in the primary location.

2.The storage account should only accept requests from secure connections. Learn more about requiring secure transfer from secure connections

In the Settings section, select the Configuration blade.
Ensure Secure transfer required is Enabled.

3.Developers would like the storage account to use at least TLS version 1.2.
Learn more about transport layer security (TLS).
TLS = Transport Layer Security, a protocol that keeps data safe during transfer.
Set Minimum TLS version to 1.2 (modern and secure).

In the Settings section, select the Configuration blade.
Ensure the Minimal TLS version is set to Version 1.2.

4.Until the storage is needed again, disable requests to the storage account.
Shared keys = a way to access storage.
Developers may prefer other secure methods.
Learn more about disabling shared keys.

In the Settings section, select the Configuration blade.

-Ensure Allow storage account key access is Disabled.
Here the key access is enabled
Public network access = allow anyone to reach your storage account from the internet

Disable key access

Be sure to Save your changes.

5.Ensure the storage account allows public access from all networks.
Public network access = allow anyone to reach your storage account from the internet.

In the Security + networking section, select the Networking blade
Ensure Public network access is set to Enabled from all networks.
Be sure to Save your changes.

Public network finally enabled from all networks

Conclusion

We have now:

Created a resource group .

Created a storage account.

Configured it for low cost (LRS), secure connections (TLS 1.2), and public access.

This setup is perfect for testing and training scenarios where cost matters more than high availability.