Windows Azure Data Storage

Chapter 1

Fundamental Concepts

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understand the different scenarios supported by Windows Azure Data Storage
• Learn some of the concepts behind NoSQL and Hadoop data stores

Business craves data.

As a developer, this is not news to you. The people running businesses have wanted it for years. They demand data about how many widgets have been ordered, how much inventory is available to be used in manufacturing, how many accounts are more than 45 days past due. More recently, the corporate appetite for data has spread way past these snacks. They want to store information about how individual consumers navigate through their website. They want to keep track of how different metrics about the machines are used in the manufacturing process. They have hundreds of MB of documents, spreadsheets, pictures, audio, and video files that need to be stored and managed. And the volume of data that is collected grows by an obscene amount every single day.

What businesses plan on doing with this information depends greatly on the industry, as well as the type and quality of the data. Inevitably, the data needs to be stored. Fortunately (or it would be an incredibly short book) Windows Azure has a number of different data storage technologies that are targeted at some of the most common business scenarios. Whether you have transient storage requirements or the need for a more permanent resting place for your data, Windows Azure is likely to have you covered. For the rest of this chapter, ...