Azure Table Storage

Owned by Roger Cruz
Apr 05, 2021
2 min read

Intro

Azure Table storage is a service that stores non-relational structured data (also known as structured NoSQL data) in the cloud, providing a key/attribute store with a schemaless design. 

 

There is now an alternative offering for table storage: the Azure Cosmos DB Table API. This API offers higher performance and availability, global distribution, and automatic secondary indexes.

Documentation

 

Tips And Tidbits

 

  • Azure Table storage stores large amounts of structured data.

  • The service is a NoSQL datastore which accepts authenticated calls from inside and outside the Azure cloud.

  • Azure Tables are ideal for storing structured, non-relational data. Common uses of Table storage include:

    • Storing TBs of structured data capable of serving web scale applications

    • Storing datasets that don't require complex joins, foreign keys, or stored procedures and can be denormalized for fast access

    • Quickly querying data using a clustered index

    • Accessing data using the OData protocol and LINQ queries with WCF Data Service .NET Libraries

 

 

  • The storage account is the parent namespace for the Table service, and is the basis for authorization.

  • URL format: Azure Table Storage accounts use this format: http://<storage account>.table.core.windows.net/<table>

    • A storage account name is a globally unique entity within the storage system.

  • Entity: An entity is a set of properties, similar to a database row.

    • An entity in Azure Storage can be up to 1MB in size.

  • Properties: A property is a name-value pair. Each entity can include up to 252 properties to store data.

  • Each entity also has three system properties that specify a partition key, a row key, and a timestamp.

    • Entities with the same partition key can be queried more quickly, and inserted/updated in atomic operations.

    • An entity's row key is its unique identifier within a partition.

 

  • Table names:

    • may contain only alphanumeric characters.

      • Beginning with version 2009-04-14, the Table service no longer supports including the dash (-) character in property names.

    • Table names cannot begin with a numeric character.

    • Table names are case-insensitive.

    • Table names must be from 3 to 63 characters long.

 

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