Azure Storage lifecycle management automatically moves blob data between hot, cool, and archive tiers as access patterns change, reducing storage costs while preserving a practical performance balance. section 9.5.1
A lifecycle policy can combine age-based actions:
- Move unmodified blobs to cool storage after 30 days. section 9.5.1
- Move them to archive after 90 days, accepting slower retrieval and higher access costs. section 9.5.1
- Delete them after 365 days without modification. section 9.5.1
A practical policy
Save a JSON lifecycle definition as policy.json, then apply it with Azure CLI using az storage account management-policy create for the target storage account and resource group.
Figure 9.12 The tradeoff: the access costs go up for cool and archive tiers, whereas the storage costs go up for cold and hot tiers.
Compare the trade-off: storage costs decrease toward archive, while access costs and latency increase. section 9.5.1
