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In this guide, you’ll learn how to create and configure a Storage Account in Azure, set up a Blob Container, manage access, upload blobs, and view container properties. We’ll walk through each step with screenshots from the Azure portal and best practices for production environments.

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Prerequisites

  • An active Azure subscription
  • Contributor or Owner access to create resources
  • Basic familiarity with Azure Portal navigation
The image shows a Microsoft Azure portal page displaying a list of storage accounts, with one storage account listed under the "Storage accounts" section.

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1. Create a Storage Account

  1. Navigate to Storage accounts in the Azure portal and click + Create.
  2. On the Basics tab:
    • Select your Subscription.
    • Choose or create a Resource group (e.g., EUS).
    • Enter a globally unique name (lowercase, no spaces), for example: 
      phvissstorage
The image shows a Microsoft Azure portal page for creating a storage account, with options to select a subscription and resource group. The "Basics" tab is active, and a dropdown menu for resource groups is visible.
  1. Under Performance, select Premium. Then choose Block blobs for optimized object storage.
The image shows a Microsoft Azure portal interface for creating a storage account, with options for instance details, region, performance, and premium account type. A dropdown menu is open, displaying options for different types of storage, such as block blobs, file shares, and page blobs.
  1. In Replication, Premium Block Blobs support only:
    Replication OptionDescription
    Locally redundant storage (LRS)Three copies within a single datacenter.
    Zone-redundant storage (ZRS)Copies spread across availability zones in the region.
    Select Locally redundant storage (LRS) for single-region durability.
  2. Switch to the Advanced tab to review settings like Hierarchical namespace (required for Data Lake Storage Gen2).
The image shows a Microsoft Azure portal interface for creating a storage account, specifically on the "Advanced" tab, with options for configuring settings like TLS version and hierarchical namespace.
  1. Under Networking, choose Enable public access from all networks to allow authenticated access from any location.
The image shows a Microsoft Azure portal screen for creating a storage account, specifically on the "Networking" tab, where network access options are being configured.
  1. On Data Protection, note that Premium accounts have soft delete enabled by default (7-day retention). Point-in-time restore isn’t available for Premium. You can also enable versioning and immutability policies.
The image shows a Microsoft Azure portal page for creating a storage account, specifically focusing on the "Data protection" settings, including options for enabling point-in-time restore and soft delete for blobs and containers.
  1. For Encryption, choose between Microsoft-managed keys or customer-managed keys in Azure Key Vault. The default is Microsoft-managed.
The image shows a Microsoft Azure portal screen for creating a storage account, specifically on the "Encryption" tab, where options for encryption type and support for customer-managed keys are being configured.
  1. Click Review + create, validate your settings, and then Create. Wait for deployment to complete.
The image shows a Microsoft Azure portal interface displaying details of a storage account named "phvissstorage," including its resource group, location, subscription, and various properties related to performance, security, and networking.

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2. Create a Blob Container

  1. Open your newly created storage account and click Containers under Data storage.
  2. Click + Container, enter a lowercase name (e.g., cs), then Create.
Container names must be 3–63 characters, lowercase letters and numbers only, without special characters or spaces.
The image shows a Microsoft Azure portal interface for managing storage containers. It includes a section for creating a new container with specific naming rules and access level settings.

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3. Assign Access Roles

If you try to browse or upload without proper permissions, you’ll encounter a 403 Forbidden error.
Error code 403 indicates you need the Storage Blob Data Contributor role (or higher) to modify container contents. Assign this role at the storage account or container scope.
The image shows a Microsoft Azure portal page with an error message stating that the request is not authorized to perform the operation due to insufficient permissions, displaying error code 403.

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4. Upload a Blob

  1. Inside your container, click Upload.
  2. Select a local file (e.g., Family.jpg) and click Upload.
  3. After uploading, you’ll see the blob listed along with its metadata:
The image shows a Microsoft Azure storage container interface with a file named "Family.jpg" listed, including details like modification date, size, and blob type.

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5. View Container Properties

To programmatically access your blobs, you need the container’s URL and metadata:
  1. From the container menu, select Properties.
  2. Copy the URL, review the ETag, lease status, and other details.
The image shows the properties page of a container in Microsoft Azure, displaying details such as the container's name, URL, last modified date, ETag, lease status, and lease state.

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6. Update Storage Account Configuration

At any time, you can revisit Configuration on the storage account to modify settings:
  • Secure transfer requirement
  • Blob anonymous access (allow read without authentication)
  • Storage account key access
Enable Allow Blob anonymous access if you want public, read-only access to your blobs (subject to network rules), then click Save.
The image shows a configuration page for a storage account in Microsoft Azure, displaying various settings such as secure transfer, blob anonymous access, and storage account key access.

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Next Steps & References

That completes the walkthrough for creating a storage account, configuring blob containers, and managing blobs in Azure Storage.

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