Is it possible to mount Azure Data Lake Store or Azure Blob Storage as a drive on a Windows or Linux VM

Question

My task is to migrate our data store which is currently located on a network drive to Azure Data Lake Store or Blob Storage, as well as to migrate the ingestion and postprocessing software. If I can mount Azure Data Lake Store or Blob Storage as a drive, it would make my task much easier.

Answer 1

You can easily mount an Azure File Share to Windows and Linux boxes: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/storage-how-to-use-files-windows

Additionally, if you're looking to go directly to blob from a Linux box, you can use Fuse (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/storage-how-to-mount-container-linux and https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/linux-fuse-adapter-for-blob-storage/).

Answer 2

I would advise against this approach. It makes more sense to abstract the details of storage in your software, therefore your application has no clue what type of storage is being used. It sounds like you have a massive coupling issues (technical debt) as your root cause. While mounting may work, it may not scale. So your mileage may vary.