Overview

• Table storage stores structured NoSQL data, providing a key/value store with a schema-less design.
• Table entries are at 1MB each.
• Access to Table storage data is fast and cost-effective for many types of applications
  • It is typically lower in cost comparing to traditional SQL.
• Data in table storage can also be accessed through an OData interface automatically.
• Common uses of Table storage include:
  • Storing structured data capable of serving web scale applications.
  • Storing datasets that don't require complex joins, foreign keys, or stored procedures and can be denormalized for fast access.
  • Quickly querying data using a clustered index.
  • Accessing data using the OData protocol and LINQ queries with WCF Data Service .NET Libraries.
• Azure SQL is a much more familiar to developers used to working with various flavors of SQL Server. The trade off is that SQL is much more expensive than tables, and is less scalable.

Table Storage Concepts

• Table: A table is a collection of entities.
  • Tables don't enforce a schema on entities, which means a single table can contain entities that have different sets of properties.
• Entity: An entity is a set of properties, similar to a database row.
  • An entity in Azure Storage can be up to 1MB in size.
  • An entity in Azure Cosmos DB can be up to 2MB in size.
• Properties: A property is a name-value pair.
  • Each entity can include up to 252 properties to store data.
  • Each entity also has three system properties that specify a partition key, a row key, and a timestamp.
  • Entities with the same partition key can be queried more quickly, and inserted/updated in atomic operations.
  • An entity's row key is its unique identifier within a partition.

Table Service REST API

.NET Client

• NuGet Package: Microsoft.Azure.Storage.Common
• Cosmos DB Table API provides throughput-optimized tables, global distribution, and automatic secondary indexes.
  • Azure Table Storage accounts: https://<storage account>.table.core.windows.net/<table>
  • Azure Cosmos DB Table API accounts: https://<storage account>.table.cosmosdb.azure.com/<table>
    • You can address Azure tables directly using this address with the OData protocol.

Configure Connection String

<configuration>
    <appSettings>
        <add key="StorageConnectionString" value="DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=account-name;AccountKey=account-key" />
				<!-- Connect to the emulator account using a shortcut -->
				<add key="StorageConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" />
    </appSettings>
</configuration>

Add an Entity to a Table

• Entities map to C# objects by using a custom class derived from TableEntity.
• An entity's partition and row key together uniquely identify a entity in the table.