Azure Files support for NFS v4.1 is now in preview
Published date: September 16, 2020
Azure Files is a distributed cloud file system serving Server Messaging Block (SMB) and REST protocols. Customers love how Azure Files enables them to easily lift and shift their legacy workloads to the cloud without any modifications or changes in technology. SMB works great on both Windows and UNIX operating systems for most use cases. However, because some applications are written for POSIX compliant file systems, our customers wanted to have the same great experience on a fully POSIX compatible NFS file system. Today, we are announcing Azure Files support for NFS v4.1 protocol.
Azure Files NFS v4.1 has a broad range of use cases. Any application ever written for Linux file systems can run on NFS. Here is a subset of customer use cases we have seen during the preview:
Linux application:
Shared storage for applications like SAP, storage for images or videos, Internet of Things (IoT) signals, etc.
End user storage:
Shared file storage for end user home directories and home directories for applications like Jupyter Notebooks. For lift-and-shift datacenter NAS data to cloud to reduce the on-premises footprint and expand to more geo regions with agility.
Container-based applications:
Persistent storage for Docker and Kubernetes environments. We are also launching the preview of CSI driver for Azure files Support for NFS today.
Databases
Hosting Oracle database and taking its backups using Recover Manager (RMAN). Azure Files premium tier is highly optimized for database workloads.