Getting Started With Azure Tables

Introduction

In this article, we will walk through some important concepts of Azure Tables using Emulator and its implementation.

• Implementation – Create the Azure Tables by using Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer.

Concepts

• Azure Tables are designed to be scalable and performance proof.
• Previously designed schemas for relational databases are pretty much familiar to you.
• If you are designing for NoSQL/Key value store, in that case, Azure Table Service is the best option to choose.
• The NoSQL data store can enable your solution to scale much faster and that too in lower case.
• Basically, the solution uses a relational database.
• Each row of the table represents an entity, every entity has a pair of keys to uniquely identify the row, and the timestamp column is used to track when the entity was last updated.
• The best part is that it looks like a table in a relational database with different keys.
• Schema-less nature of the Table Service means that a property needs to have the same data type on each entity.
• To store complex data type, you must use a serialized format, such as JSON or XML.
• As you will see in the demo, partition key and row key are fundamentals for good design. Every entity stored in the table must have a unique combination of Partition Key and Row Key.
• Basically, these values are indexed to create a clustered index that enables much faster look ups.
• The table is made up of one or more partitions. Partition Key and Row Key are suitable to optimize your solution.
• The account name, table name, and Partition Key together identify the partition within the same Storage Service where your Table Service stores the entity.

Creating Azure Tables by using Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer

• Open Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer.
  
  
  

• Now, open (Local and Attached) - Storage Accounts - (Development).
  
  
• Click on Tables, right click on that and create Table.
  
  
  

• Give name to tables like “testtables” and then click on "Add +" button on top to add an Entity.
  
  
• Give the PartitionKey, RowKey, Timestamp in DateTime format, and name. You can add more properties into it by clicking on “Add Property” button. Lastly, click on “Insert” button after filling all the required values.
  
  
  

• This is how you can insert the row in key value pair form.
  
   

Hope you learned from this article. Please post your queries below in the comments section or inbox me.