Creating an Azure Blob storage device

Azure Blob storage devices can be associated with an advanced storage area.

Before you begin

Before you create an Azure Blob storage device in the Administration Console for Content Platform Engine, you must complete the following tasks to set up your Azure Blob storage.

Note:

Advanced storage areas do not support immutable storage.

Collect the following information about your Azure Blob environment to use during setup:
  • Azure Storage Account Name
  • Azure Storage Account Access Key
  • Azure Storage Connection URL
  • Azure Container Name
  • Azure security certificate (if HTTPS communication between Content Platform Engine and Azure Blob storage is used)
To set up your Azure Blob storage:
  1. On your Azure cloud system, create an Azure storage account. Select either a General-purpose V2 account or a BlockBlobStorage account.
  2. Within your Azure storage account, create a container to store all Content Platform Engine documents and content.
  3. If you are using secure communications between the Content Platform Engine and Azure Blob storage, a security certificate is required on each Content Platform Engine server. In most cases the security certificate is already in place, so importing an Azure storage SSL certificate is not required. However, if the security certificate is not in place, follow the steps in Configuring SSL for an advanced storage device.

About this task

For more details about this configuration, see https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/how-configure-azure-blob-storage-filenet-content-manager External link opens a new window or tab.

Procedure

To create an Azure Blob storage device:

  1. Start the New Azure Blob Storage Device wizard in the administration console:
    1. In the tree view, click the Object Store > object store name to open the object store that uses the device.
    2. In the object store tree view, right-click the Administrative > Storage > Advanced Storage > Advanced Storage Devices folder and click New Azure Blob Storage Device.
  2. Complete the wizard.
    Table 1. Azure Blob Storage Device Wizard values
    Field Value
    Azure Storage connection URL This URL provides the endpoint address that enables the Content Platform Engine storage connector to access the Azure Blob storage container. The URL must contain both the account name (replace mystorageaccount) and the container name (replace container-name) in the following format:

    https://mystorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/container-name
    Azure Storage Account Name The account name used when creating the Azure storage account for Blob storage.
    Azure Access Key This value is used for Azure Shared Key Authorization. When creating a storage account, Azure generates two 512-bit access keys. You can use either of the two keys, however, best practice is to use the first key and reserve the use of the second key for when you are rotating keys.

    See the Azure Blob storage documentation for more information.
    Azure Container Name The container is where the Advanced Storage Device will store Content Platform Engine content within Azure Blob storage.
    HTTPS certificate validation Azure Blob storage supports both HTTP and HTTPS connections. To use an HTTPS connection, a valid SSL certificate must be installed on each Content Platform Engine server.

Optimizing upload performance with multi-threaded uploads

About this task

You can configure multi-threaded uploads to improve performance when migrating large content (hundreds of megabytes to gigabytes) to an Azure Blob storage device. This allows the Content Platform Engine to use multiple threads during upload, which is particularly beneficial when the connection is slow or when uploading files in multiple blocks.

Multi-threaded uploads work with both direct stream and staging file uploads. Thread count is set at the storage device level—to apply settings selectively, create a separate storage device and store area for large files.

Note:

Use multi-threaded uploads only for large files. Small files (with only a few blocks) do not benefit from this setting. Using too many threads for small files can reduce performance.

Procedure

  1. Configure the JVM parameter DContent.Azure.MultiBlockUploadThreadNum to enable multi-threaded uploads at the storage device level. Start with the default block size and use 2–5 threads.

    Use the following parameter format:

    DContent.Azure.MultiBlockUploadThreadNum_{<GUID>}=<thread_count>

    Where:

    • GUID is the object ID of the Azure Blob storage device.
    • thread_count is the number of threads you want to use.
  2. Test the performance and adjust the settings as needed.