Microsoft Azure Storage Service APIs removal on december 2015

Question

As a Microsoft Azure services client, I received earlier today the following mail: http://aka.ms/Qga48e.

I was wondering how I could migrate my Blob storage without

Answer 1

The Storage Service REST API is not being removed. There are several versions of the API, from over the years. Older versions of the REST API (prior to the 2012-02-12 version) are being retired. But it's definitely not going away, and neither is the Azure Storage service.

Different versions of the SDKs (across the various language stacks) and command-line tools (PowerShell, CLI) may be using one of the older versions. If you're using the current versions of SDKs and command-line tools, this has no effect on you.

Consider how many versions there have been (all tracked here, and all listed in the page you linked to in your answer:

• 2014-02-14 (current)
• 2013-08-15
• 2012-02-12
• 2011-08-18
• 2009-09-19
• 2009-07-17
• 2009-04-14

If you're using an older version of an SDK or command-line tool, there's a chance that, in Dec. 2015, it won't work as expected anymore, as the underlying version will have been retired. So, essentially you have until December 2015 to update your Azure projects if needed.

Answer 2

I don't think that it would be necessary. Besides Azure Blob Service and Azure File Service serve different purposes all together and the things you could do with blob service can't be done through file service.

As mentioned in the newsletter, what you should try to do is upgrade your client applications to make use of latest version of storage client library. If you're using an older version of library (< 2.0), there would be some pain in migration but migrating from 2.0 to 4.x (currently latest version) should be rather painless.

Next thing you should look into is the default service version of your storage account services. If you're using .Net storage client library, you can fetch it via GetServicePropertiesAsync method. You can update the default service version using SetServicePropertiesAsync method.

You may also find this link helpful about understanding storage service versioning: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/dd894041.aspx.

UPDATE: 13-DEC-2014

Azure Storage Team has published a blog post which talks more about this issue: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/2014/08/05/microsoft-azure-storage-service-version-removal.aspx.