Partitioning
Blob storage uses a range-based partitioning scheme for scaling and load balancing. Each blob has a partition key comprised of the full blob name (account+container+blob). The partition key is used to partition blob data into ranges. The ranges are then load-balanced across Blob storage.
If your naming scheme uses timestamps or numerical identifiers, it can lead to excessive traffic to one partition. It prevents the system from effectively load balancing. For instance, if you have daily operations that use a blob object with a timestamp, such as yyyy-mm-dd, all the traffic for that operation goes to a single partition server. Instead, prefix the name with a three-digit hash.
Consistency
The actions of writing a single block or page are atomic, but operations that span blocks, pages, or blobs aren’t. If you need to ensure consistency when write operations are performed across blocks, pages, and blobs, take out a write lock by using a blob lease.
References
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/well-architected/reliability/partition-data#partition-in-azure-blob-storage
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/storage-performance-checklist#partitioning
- https://sigops.org/s/conferences/sosp/2011/current/2011-Cascais/printable/11-calder.pdf