Azure Storage Emulator & Explorer

Want to easily test\develop against Azure Storage Services locally?  If so then you should try the new Azure Storage Explorer app and the Azure Storage Emulator!  For reference, the following storage services are currently offered by Azure.

  • Blob (Container) storage service
  • Table (NoSQL) storage service
  • Queue (Messaging) storage service
  • File (Share) storage service

You can test 3/4 of the storage services locally (free) before implementing any changes in Azure.  Using the emulator, you can simulate Blob, Queue, and Table services locally.

Azure Storage Emulator

Setting up the emulator is pretty straight forward.  Follow the directions here.  After the install, you can write your storage code and target the emulator.  Quick “Create Blob Container” python script below. (pip install azure==2.0.0rc)

import random, string
from random import randint
from azure.storage import CloudStorageAccount
from azure.storage.blob import BlockBlobService

account = CloudStorageAccount(is_emulated=True)
blockblob_service = account.create_block_blob_service()
container_name = 'samplecontainername'
blockblob_service.create_container(container_name)

Azure Storage Explorer

Now you can install the storage explorer application to view the storage data.  From the application, you will be able to view Azure storage in the cloud (SAS) and your emulator storage services.

AzureStorage

I think the combination of the emulator and the storage explorer make for a nice cost-efficient development environment…