Managing Azure Storage Accounts and Blob Containers

1. Creating a Storage Account with the Azure Portal

The Azure Portal provides a guided, visual way to create resources. It's an excellent starting point for understanding all the configuration options available, many of which we discussed in the last lesson (like redundancy and performance tiers).

The video below offers a clear, step-by-step walkthrough of creating a storage account using the portal interface.

For a more comprehensive reference that details every option across all the creation tabs (Basics, Advanced, Networking, etc.), the official Microsoft documentation is the definitive source.

Activity: Create Your First Storage Account

Now it's your turn.

1. Navigate to the Azure Portal.
2. Search for "Storage accounts" and click Create.
3. On the Basics tab, configure the following:
   • Subscription: Select your Azure subscription.
   • Resource group: Create a new one named az204-storage-rg.
   • Storage account name: Enter a globally unique, lowercase name (e.g., az204storage followed by your initials and today's date, like az204storagexy20231027).
   • Region: Choose a region near you.
   • Performance: Keep it as Standard.
   • Redundancy: Select Locally-redundant storage (LRS) for this exercise.
4. Click Review, and after validation passes, click Create.

Deployment will take a minute or two. Once complete, you will have your first storage account ready to use.

2. Managing Blob Containers in the Portal

With a storage account in place, the next step is to create a container within it. As we reviewed, a container acts like a folder for organizing your blobs.

Activity: Create a Container

1. In the Azure Portal, navigate to the storage account you just created.
2. In the left-hand menu, under Data storage, click on Containers.
3. Click the + Container button.
4. Name your container images.
5. Set the Public access level to Private (no anonymous access).
6. Click Create.

You have now successfully provisioned the basic structure for storing blobs using the Azure Portal.

3. Automating with the Azure CLI

While the portal is great for exploration, the Azure CLI is the tool of choice for automation, repeatability, and efficiency—principles central to DevOps. Given your experience, you'll likely find the CLI to be a more productive way to manage Azure resources.

First, let's understand why a command-line approach is so valuable.

3.1. Setting Up the Azure CLI

If you don't have the Azure CLI installed, the following video and documentation walk you through the process for Windows, macOS, or Linux. The key steps are installation and then logging in to connect the CLI to your Azure account.

3.2. Creating Resources with CLI Commands

With the CLI ready, we can now replicate what we did in the portal, but with a few simple commands. The process is the same: create a resource group, then a storage account, then a container.

The video below demonstrates these exact steps.

Activity: Use the CLI to Provision Storage

Now, open your preferred terminal (PowerShell, bash, or cmd) and run the following commands. Replace the storage account name with a new, unique name.

1. Log in to Azure (if you haven't already):

   az login
   

2. Create a new resource group for our CLI-based resources:

   az group create --name az204-storage-cli-rg --location "East US"
   

3. Create a new storage account. Note how parameters like --sku and --kind map to the portal options.

   az storage account create \
     --name az204storagecli<your_initials> \
     --resource-group az204-storage-cli-rg \
     --location "East US" \
     --sku Standard_LRS \
     --kind StorageV2
   

   Make sure to replace az204storagecli<your_initials> with a unique name.

4. Create a container within the new storage account. The command for this is az storage container create.

   az storage container create \
     --account-name az204storagecli<your_initials> \
     --name documents \
     --auth-mode login
   

   This command creates a container named documents and uses your logged-in Azure AD credentials for authorization.

After running these commands, you can go back to the Azure Portal to verify that the az204-storage-cli-rg resource group and its contents were created successfully. You've just accomplished in a few lines of scriptable text what previously required navigating through multiple UI screens.

Conclusion

In this lesson, you have successfully provisioned Azure Storage resources using both the user-friendly Azure Portal and the powerful Azure CLI. This fulfills a core requirement for the AZ-204 exam and gives you a practical foundation for all blob storage operations.

Here are your key takeaways:

• The Azure Portal is ideal for visual exploration and configuring complex, one-off resources where you want to see all available options.
• The Azure CLI is superior for automation, scripting, and repeatable infrastructure deployment, aligning perfectly with modern development and DevOps practices.
• The fundamental resources—resource group, storage account, and container—can be created and managed using both tools. The CLI commands az group create, az storage account create, and az storage container create are your primary tools for this.

In our next lesson, we will build directly on what you've created today. You'll learn how to perform blob operations (create, upload, manage) on containers using the Azure SDK for .NET, connecting your C# skills to the cloud storage you've just provisioned.