How To Create Azure Blob Storage Data Destination

Configuring an Azure Blob data destination is quick and easy. This guide will walk you through how to create a Gen2 storage account and access credentials.

The goal of this process is to generate three elements needed so we can securely establish a connection to your Azure Blob data destination. These are:

Storage Account Name
Container Name
Connection string

Take note of all three as you proceed through this process. Let's go...

Step 1: Create a v2 Storage Account

Log into your Azure portal: https://portal.azure.com/. To create a general-purpose v2 storage account in the Azure portal, follow these steps:

On the Azure portal menu, select All services. In the list of resources, type Storage Accounts. As you begin typing, the list filters based on your input. Select Storage Accounts.
On the Storage Accounts window that appears, choose Add.
Select the subscription in which to create the storage account.
Under the Resource group field, select Create new. Enter a name for your new resource group, as shown in the following image.

Next, enter a name for your storage account. The name you choose must be unique across Azure. The name also must be between 3 and 24 characters in length and can include numbers and lowercase letters only.
Select a location for your storage account, or use the default location.
Leave these fields set to their default values:

We suggest configuring blob storage as a data lake to ensure it is compatible with an Azure Data Lake. As a result, choose the Advanced tab, and then set the Hierarchical namespace to Enabled.
Select Review + Create to review your storage account settings and create the account.

You just created an Azure Blob Gen2 storage account!

Step 2: Create A Blob Storage Container

To create a container in the Azure portal, follow these steps:

Navigate to your new Azure Blob Gen2 storage account in the Azure portal.
In the left menu for the storage account, scroll to the Data storage section, then select Blob containers.
Select the + Container button. This will create a new container.
Type a name for your new container. Use a name that will uniquely identify this container usage as a data destination. For example, my-analytics-data or azure-blob-marketing-data
Note: The container name must be lowercase, must start with a letter or number, and can include only letters, numbers, and the dash (-) character. For more information about container and blob names, see Naming and referencing containers, blobs, and metadata.
Make sure access is Private!
Select OK to create the container.

You just created an Azure Blob storage container!

Step 3: Access Authorization

The last step is getting access credentials so we can write to your new blob storage data destination.

Within your storage account, navigate to "Access Keys".
Copy the Storage account name and the Connection string. Each of these is required within the Openbridge configuration page when registering a Azure Blob storage data destination.

If you have copied the Storage account name and the Connection string you are all done in Azure!

You should now have a Storage Account Name, Container Name, and Connection string. Openbridge will use these to authenticate our applications when making requests to your Azure storage account.

Log into your Openbridge account and configure your Azure Blob data destination.

Note: As always, store your access keys securely - for example, do not share this information over email or any other insecure channel! Lastly, if you regenerate your access keys, you must update Openbridge resources and applications that access this storage account.