Blob storage

Blob storage has the advantage of better scalability. When your Sitefinity Cloud database becomes too big, handling and restoring it may become time consuming. In this case, it is best to use Blob storage for your media files.

Sitefinity Cloud uses Azure Blob Storage - an implementation of a cloud blob storage provider that stores the binary blob data of Sitefinity Cloud library items on Azure Storage. 
For more information, see Microsoft documentation » Introduction to Azure Blob storage.

The storage allocated for the blob is 1 TB for all your environments. To calculate how much storage you will have per environment, you have to divide 1 TB by the number of your environments, including local development environment. You can purchase more storage, if required.

To accommodate for blob storage, Sitefinity Cloud has added an Azure storage account. In this account, there are different blob storage containers – one for each environment. Each environment is configured to work with the respective blob container.

There are three different cases in which media file blobs are synchronized between environments:

• DB.RestoreBetweenEnvironments pipeline
  This pipeline is used to restore the database from one environment to another. As part of the operation, the blobs in the container on the target environment are replaced with the blobs in the container on the source environment.     
• DB.Export pipeline
  This pipeline is used to export a database backup from the cloud environments that can be used for local development purposes. As part of the operation, the blob container from the cloud environment is synced to the blob container used for the local development environment. In this process, media file blobs are merged, where blobs that are located only in the container for the local development environment are not deleted. 
  

  NOTE: This pipeline is available if the Developer Extensions toggle is enabled. 

• Site Sync
  Sitefinity Site Sync implements out-of-the-box functionality that syncs blob items between different blob containers.
  When you sync content from Authoring / Staging to Production, it automatically syncs blob items. If an item is available on Production, but not on Authoring / Staging, it is deleted from the Production environment.

  The following chart demonstrates how blob containers are synchronized: