Azure Storage Service

Azure storage is a cloud storage solution for applications which provides applications additional scalability, durability and highly available storage for their data.

The 4 different types of Azure storage service are :

1. Blob Storage : This supports any type of text or binary data, such as application installers, documents, media files etc. It stores unstructured object data hence also referred as object storage.
2. Table Storage : It is for No-SQL key attribute datastore, which is useful for rapid development and provides quick access to huge amount of data.
3. Queue Storage : User for communication between cloud services by providing reliable messaging for workflow processing
4. File Storage : Used for shared storage for applications using SMB Protocol. Mounted shares are used to share files between Azure VM's and applications, to share files with the on-premises applications we can use file services Rest API.

Azure Single sign-on (SSO)

We all know that SSO (Single Sign-On) means that we can access all the required applications and resources by signing in only once. This saves us time and effort and also keeps it easy for the users that they just have to remember one password for accessing the resources.

Talking about Azure cloud, Azure supports 3 different ways of SSO for applications :

1. Federated Single Sign-On : This enables the applications to be redirected to Azure AD instead of prompting the users for a password. This is supported by applications which support SAML 2.0, WS-Federation and OpenID connect.
2. Password Based Single Sign-On : Provides secure application based password storage, which is replayed with the help of web browser extensions or mobile apps. This method leverages the existing sign on process of the application
3. Existing Single Sign-On : If you already have a SSO deployed for an application, this method extends the SSO capability to Office 365 or Azure AD access panel portals and also enables additional reporting in Azure AD.