Azure Storage - Tools

Storage explorer
• Azure Storage Explorer is a standalone app that enables you to easily work with Azure Storage
data on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

• Storage Explorer provides several ways to connect to storage accounts. For example, you can:

• Connect to storage accounts associated with your Azure subscriptions.

• Connect to storage accounts and services that are shared from other Azure subscriptions.

• Connect to and manage local storage by using the Azure Storage Emulator.

• Other services you can connect to

• Cosmos DB

• Data Lake store

Storage emulator

• The Microsoft Azure storage emulator provides a local environment that emulates the Azure Blob,
Queue, and Table services for development purposes.

• Using the storage emulator, you can test your application against the storage services locally,
without creating an Azure subscription or incurring any costs

• The storage emulator is available as part of the Microsoft Azure SDK. You can also install the
storage emulator by using the standalone installer (direct download).

• The storage emulator uses a local Microsoft SQL Server instance and the local file system to
emulate Azure storage services. By default, the storage emulator uses a database in Microsoft SQL
Server 2012 Express LocalDB.
Visual studio cloud & server explorer
• Server explorer

• The Azure Storage node in Server Explorer shows data in your local storage emulator account
and your other Azure storage accounts.

• To see the storage emulator account’s resources, expand the Development node

• To view resources in a storage account, expand the storage account’s node in Server Explorer
where you see Blobs, Queues, and Tables nodes.

• Cloud explorer

• Cloud Explorer enables you to view your Azure resources and resource groups, inspect their
properties, and perform key developer diagnostics actions from within Visual Studio.
Azure storage client library
• Client library

• Use connection strings to connect to an Azure Storage account, then use the client libraries'
classes and methods to work with blob, table, file, or queue storage.

• Install the NuGet package WIndowsAzure.Storage

• Management API’s

• Create and manage Azure Storage accounts and connection keys with the management API.

• Install the NuGet package Microsoft.Azure.Management.Storage.Fluent