Understanding Azure Storage (blobs) with accounts and containers. Test containers?

Question

I am beginning to use Azure Storage (blob specifically) in my application but wanted to know what the norm was in the case of testing versus production storage.

So is it routine to create one storage account? ie:

http:// <storage-account-name>.blob.core.windows.net/

and then have different containers for each environment? ie:

http://<storage-account-name>.blob.core.windows.net/testContainer
http://<storage-account-name>.blob.core.windows.net/productionContainer

so then it would end up looking like with populated data:

http://<storage-account-name>.blob.core.windows.net/testContainer/<whateverkey>
http://<storage-account-name>.blob.core.windows.net/productionContainer/<whateverkey>

or is should I be creating two different storage accounts? I had assumed that the connectionString generated was for just the storage account name and then later in my logic I would be specifying the containers and keys when adding data.

Thanks

Answer 1

There is no standard way, but... keep in mind: Azure storage isn't multi-level regarding subfolders (though the paths can be simulated). So, using containers to organize test vs production will hinder your ability to take advantage of conainers properly within your app (e.g. if you want /images/foo.png ... now you must have /productioncontainer/images/foo.png).

Remember that storage accounts are free: You pay only for storage used. So it costs nothing extra to have both a test and a production storage account. And then, the only thing that changes is the base address (storage account name).

You're correct regarding connection string: You just have accountname.blob.core.windows.net/container/object .

Answer 2

You should use different Storage Accounts - that way in addition to having storage isolation you can also ensure you have different security protection for accessing your development environment vs your production environment.