Microsoft Azure Storage and Database Part 26 – Azure File Service – Storage Sync Service – Configure Azure File Sync – 2

Hello Friends,

Hope you all are doing good !!! 🙂 .

In our previous article we have started discussing How to Deploy And Configure Azure File Sync Service and out of 6 section, we have covered 4 section in our last article. Today in this article we will continue with the same topic and complete the configuration Azure File Sync Service.

Tool Installation Articles :

1. Configure Azure Command Line Interface ( Azure CLI) On Windows
2. Configure PowerShell For Microsoft Azure Az Module On Windows

Previous Azure series :

1. Learn Basics Of Azure Networking In 60 Hours
2. Learn Basic Of Azure Active Directory And Azure Identity And Access Management
3. Azure DevOps – Learn at one place

If you have missed our previous articles on Azure Storage and Database Series, please check it in following links.

Part 1 – Overview Of Azure Storage and Database

Part 2 – Azure Storage Account

Part 3 – Azure Blob Storage

Part 4 – Work With Azure Blob Storage

• .
• .
• .
• .

Part 22 – Azure File Service – Configure Azure File Share Back Up Using PowerShell

Part 23 – Azure File Service – Restore Azure Files From Back Up Using PowerShell

Part 24 – Azure File Service – Storage Sync Service

Part 25 – Azure File Service – Storage Sync Service – Configure Azure File Sync – 1

Next Article : Part 27 – Difference Between Azure Blog Storage And Azure File Storage

Uses Of Storage Sync Service

We have gone through the theory pat of this service in our previous articles. Now without taking much time, we will resume our Azure File sync Service configuration and as we know that, we need to configure the last two sections. We have configured the highlighted sections in last article.

1. Configure Storage Account And File Share
2. Deploy The Storage Sync Service
3. Configure Azure File Sync Client On Window Server
4. Register Windows Server with Storage Sync Service
5. Configure Sync Group And Cloud Endpoint
6. Configure Server Endpoint

5 ) Create And Configure Sync Group And Cloud Endpoint :

A Sync Group defines the sync topology for a set of files. Endpoints configured in Sync Group helps to sync with each other. A Sync Group must contain one cloud endpoint, which represents an Azure file share and one or more server endpoints. 

Let’s create one Sync Group and configure Cloud Endpoint as described in below steps.

Step 1 – Log-In to Azure portal and navigate to our Storage Sync Service . As we can see in the following figure currently we don’t have any Sync Group exists.

Step 2 – In the above figure we can see, there is one +Sync Group button to create a new sync group. Let’s click the button to start creating a new Sync Group.

Step 3 – It will open Sync group pane. In the pane that opens, we need to provide correct information to create a sync group with a cloud endpoint as showing in the following figure.

Following are the detail of the information I have configured for my Sync Group and Cloud Endpoint.

• Sync group name : The name of the sync group to be created. This name must be unique within the Storage Sync Service.
• Subscription : The subscription where we deployed the Storage Sync Service in Deploy the Storage Sync Service.
• Storage account : Let’s select the storage account and it will open another pane. In which we can select the storage account that has the Azure file share that we want to sync with.
• Azure file share : The name of the Azure file share with which we want to sync.

Step 4 – After configure all information, click Create button to create and configure the Sync Group. As we can see in the following figures, our Sync Group created and the cloud endpoint configured for the sync group. So here we are done with this section . In our next section we will configure Server Endpoints.

6 ) Configure Server Endpoint :

This is the last section, where we will configure our Server Endpoints. A server endpoint represents a specific location on a registered server, such as a folder on a server volume. We can see in the following figure, each of our Windows server has one folder name as “Manas Data“. We will configure both of them as Server endpoints.

When we are configuring a server endpoint, we should consider the following conditions.

• A server endpoint must be a path on a registered server (rather than a mounted share). Network attached storage (NAS) is not supported.
• Although the server endpoint can be on the system volume, server endpoints on the system volume may not use cloud tiering.
• Changing the path or drive letter after we established a server endpoint on a volume is not supported. Make sure we are using a final path on our registered server.
• A registered server can support multiple server endpoints, however a sync group can only have one server endpoint per registered server at any given time. Other server endpoints within the sync group must be on different registered servers.

Now let’s configure Server endpoint as suggested in below steps.

Step 1 – Select newly created Sync Group, in our above section, we have configure Cloud endpoint. Now we will configure server endpoint for both registered servers. From Sync Group page, click Add server endpoint button to add a server endpoint as showing in the following figure.

Step 2 – It will open Add server endpoint pane. In that pane, for Registered Server field, select our registered server from the dropdown.

As showing in the figure I have selected my first registered server, then configure the Path field with the path to my “Manas Data” folder as showing in the following figure. As this is for our POC exercise, I left rest of the configuration as it is and hit Create button to create my first Server endpoint.

Step 3 – Repeat the above step to add the second server endpoint. Just we need to select the second server from the dropdown and provide it’s folder path as showing in the above figure.

We can see in the above figure that, we have configured our both Server endpoints. let’s check is there any synchronization happened or not. To check that first, we need to check what are the files in our FileShare by navigating to our File share overview page. As showing in the following figure, there are few files and folders in the File share.

Next, we will go and check in our server endpoint folder (Manas Data).

We can see in the above figure, all files and folder from file share are automatically downloaded into our synced folder (Manas Data) of both servers.

Ok, So far so good, now we will do another testing to check if the synchronization working when adding new file to one server.

Here I am adding one text file “Urvi Fille” into the synced folder of server 2.

As showing in the following figure the same file is immediately visible in the synced folder of server 1.

The last location need to be check is the Azure File Share . As we can see in the following figure, the file is also updated/synced into our File share.

As we can see in the above figure, we have successfully added two Server endpoints. Just for testing we have skipped many configurations. If we need to configure those fields, then let’s go throughs the following details of each field.

• Registered server : The name of the server or cluster where you want to create the server endpoint.
• Path : The Windows Server path to be synced as part of the sync group.
• Cloud Tiering : A switch to enable or disable cloud tiering. With cloud tiering, infrequently used or accessed files can be tiered to Azure Files.
• Volume Free Space : The amount of free space to reserve on the volume on which the server endpoint is located. For example, if volume free space is set to 50% on a volume that has a single server endpoint, roughly half the amount of data is tiered to Azure Files. Regardless of whether cloud tiering is enabled, our Azure file share always has a complete copy of the data in the sync group.
• Initial download mode : This is an optional selection, starting with agent version 11, that can be helpful when there are files in the Azure file share but not on the server.

I hope this is informative to you. Please let me know if I missed anything important or if my understanding is not up to the mark. Keep reading, share your thoughts, experiences. Feel free to contact us to discuss more.

Next Article : Part 27 – Difference Between Azure Blog Storage And Azure File Storage

If you have any suggestion / feedback / doubt, you are most welcome. Stay tuned on Knowledge-Junction, will come up with more such articles.