Azure for Elixir Developers

Azure Storage concepts for Elixir developers new to the platform.

Key Terms

Your First Upload

credential = SharedKeyCredential.new("myaccount", System.get_env("AZURE_STORAGE_KEY"))

client = Storage.Client.new(account: "myaccount", credential: credential)

{:ok, _} = Container.create(client, "uploads")
{:ok, blob} = Blob.upload(client, "uploads", "hello.txt", "Hello, Azure!")

Every step returns {:ok, result} or {:error, %AzureSDK.Error{}}.

Local Development with Azurite

docker compose up -d

client = Storage.Client.new(
  account: "devstoreaccount1",
  credential: SharedKeyCredential.new("devstoreaccount1",
    "Eby8vdM02xNOcqFlqUwJPLlmEtlCDXJ1OUzFT50uSRZ6IFsuFq2UVErCz4I6tq/K1SZFPTOtr/KBHBeksoGMGw=="),
  endpoint: "http://127.0.0.1:10000/devstoreaccount1"
)

The Azurite key is public — local use only.

Authentication

Shared Key (v0.1.0) — full account access for server-side apps.

SAS (v0.1.0) — time-limited scoped access:

SASCredential.new("sv=2024-11-04&ss=b&sp=r&se=...")

Azure AD (v0.2.0) — OAuth bearer tokens, no shared keys.

Error Handling

case Blob.download(client, "uploads", "missing.txt") do
  {:ok, blob} -> blob.content
  {:error, %Error{status: 404, code: "BlobNotFound"} = e} -> Logger.warning(e.message)
  {:error, %Error{} = e} -> {:error, e}
end

%AzureSDK.Error{} has status, code, message, request_id, service.

Telemetry

:telemetry.attach("app", [:azure_sdk, :blob, :put], fn _, _, %{container: c, name: n}, _ ->
  Logger.info("Uploaded #{c}/#{n}")
end, nil)

What AzureSDK Is

• Platform SDK for Azure on the BEAM (Blob today, more coming)
• Req transport, telemetry, retry, standardized errors
• OTP-ready client structs, no hidden state

What It Isn't (Yet)

• Full Azure SDK — Queue, Table, Management in later releases
• SAS generator — v0.1.0 consumes SAS only
• Terraform replacement — use Management plane (v0.5.0) for provisioning

Next Steps

• livebooks/getting_started.livemd
• guides/identity_vs_data_plane.md
• guides/migrating_from_azurex.md