Microsoft Azure offers dozens of cloud-based computing features and services that enable companies of all sizes to run their business on the internet without having to purchase and manage hardware. This ebook looks at several ways to take advantage of Azure, from creating an IoT hub to setting up a home office VPN server.

From the ebook:

One of the most fundamental benefits of cloud computing is the ability to create an off-premises storage capacity that is accessible to an entire enterprise at any time from anywhere. Whether your business stores enterprise-critical data or general images for your website, having reliable access, supported by the proper backup and redundancy procedures, is vital.

Depending on your current business needs, storage options in Microsoft Azure are available in several forms, including general purpose storage accounts and blog storage accounts. Each of the storage accounts also includes redundancy options that can give your business better than 99.99% reliable access.

Creating and configuring a storage account using the Microsoft Azure Portal can be accomplished with a few mouse clicks. System administrators may also opt to create and configure storage accounts with PowerShell or Azure CLI. This tutorial shows you how to create and configure a storage account with the Azure Portal.

Creating the account
This procedure assumes you have an active Microsoft Azure account. Log in to that account and navigate to the Home page. Click on the Storage Accounts link in the left-hand navigation bar to reach the screen shown in Figure A.

Click the + Add button to start a new storage account (Figure B). Choose the appropriate subscription account and resource group and then enter a unique name for your new account. Remember, you will likely have to type this name to access the account, so make it something reasonable.