Configure Microsoft Azure Lifecycle Policy

Microsoft Azure lifecycle policies enable an automatic data transition between different storage tiers (Hot to Cool, Hot to Archive, or Cool to Archive). This provides flexible management of medium and long-term storage costs.

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Azure Lifecycle Policy
• Create and Manage Lifecycle Policy for Azure

Azure Lifecycle Policy

Azure Blob storage lifecycle management offers a full-functional, rule-based policy for GPv2 and Blob storage accounts. Use the policy to transition your data to the appropriate access tiers or expire at the end of the data's lifecycle.

The lifecycle management policy enables:

• Transition blobs to a cooler storage tier (hot to cool, hot to archive, or cool to archive) to optimize for performance and cost
• Delete blobs at the end of their lifecycles
• Define rules to be run once per day at the storage account level
• Apply rules to containers or a subset of blobs (using prefixes as filters)

Azure storage offers different access tiers, which allow you to store blob object data most cost-effectively. The available access tiers include:

• Hot. Optimized for storing data that is accessed frequently
• Cool. Optimized for storing data that is infrequently accessed and stored for at least 30 days.
• Archive. Optimized for storing data that is rarely accessed and stored for at least 180 days with flexible latency requirements (on the order of hours).

To learn more about Azure lifecycle policy, refer to Microsoft documentation.

Create and Manage a Lifecycle Policy

A lifecycle policy enables you to move your backups between storage tiers after a specified number of days. For example, you back up data to a Hot tier, then your backup data is moved automatically to a Cool storage after 30 days, and then this data is moved to Archive tier automatically after 60 days. You can save the lifecycle configuration as well as the default configuration for other backup plans.

To Configure Lifecycle Settings

To configure Lifecycle Settings, proceed as follows:

1. Open the Management Console.
2. In the Storage Accounts menu, find the storage destination you want lifecycle rules to be applied, then click the Settings icon.
3. Select Lifecycle Rules Settings.

4. In the Lifecycle Rules Settings dialog box, specify settings for the backup data lifecycle.
5. Once you are finished, click OK.