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Azure Archive Storage

Industry leading price point for storing rarely accessed data.
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OVERVIEW

Reliable, low-cost storage for long-term data preservation

  • Exponential data growth doesn’t have to mean exponential costs for data storage and management. Azure Archive Storage offers low-cost, durable, and highly available secure cloud storage for rarely accessed data with flexible latency requirements. Store terabytes of data in the cloud for only a few dollars a month, and repurpose your storage infrastructure for other critical business objectives.
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  • Rarely accessed doesn’t mean unimportant. Many industries require that organizations maintain multiple years of sensitive financial, medical, or employee data. When you move that data to the cloud, you want it to be protected with the highest level of security. Archive Storage provides secure data transfer to the cloud using HTTPS, and automatically secures that data at rest using 256-bit AES keys.
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  • Azure Archive Storage is yet another storage tier available for blob storage. Hot, cool, and archive objects can all exist side by side in the same account. And with the introduction of blob-level tiering, you can change an object’s tier with a single click in the Azure portal, or you can use the REST API (or .NET, Java, Python, and a number of other SDKs) to programmatically change as many objects as needed.
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Features

Archive Storage Use Cases

Long Term Backup Retention

Many organizations retain multi-year, PB sized collections of Server and Desktop data backups and store them on expensive storage arrays. Azure Archive Storage provides a secure, low-cost means for retaining those backups and freeing up storage capacity for other productive uses.

Business Policy Mandated Data Archiving

Companies can generate PB’s of data in the course of day to day operations and to meet legal compliance requirements. Company policies often dictate that this data (sensitive HR records, email, financial/tax records) is retained in perpetuity. Archive Storage can work with Smart Archiving offerings from ISV’s to create a low cost, content archiving solution.

Healthcare Data Archiving

Healthcare providers are increasingly required to retain patient medical record data for multi-year periods. Storage requirements for patient data can quickly escalate when the records include high resolution images and ultrasound content. Azure Archive storage enables Healthcare providers to lower their storage costs while providing secure, globally compliant storage for sensitive medical data.

Magnetic Tape Replacement

Maintaining tape storage infrastructure is expensive and often requires specialized equipment and expertise. Archive Storage is a cost-effective, low maintenance replacement alternative for tape storage.

Digital Media Content Retention

Creators can generate PB’s worth of video and picture content that is used in the development of original digital media. Archive Storage gives creators a low-cost storage repository for original source content. Blob-level tiering makes it easy to shift from cold to hot storage should the need arise to use that content for another project.

Security/Public Safety data retention

As the number and sophistication of threats to personal and business safety continue to increase, so does the demand for video surveillance. Public and now private sector companies generate TB’s of surveillance footage daily in the course of protecting their citizens and assets. Archive Storage is a low cost option for storing that data.
Security

Embedded security and compliance

34,000
Full-time equivalent engineers dedicated to security initiatives at Microsoft.
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15,000
Partners with specialized security expertise.
 
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>100
Compliance certifications, including over 50 specific to global regions and countries.
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Industry recognition

Partner-friendly

We’ve made it easy for data management vendors to take advantage of the archive tier.
See partner solutions with built-in support for the Azure archive tier.
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Study
The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Azure Archive Storage
Microsoft commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential ROI enterprises may realize by deploying Azure Archive Storage.
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