Microsoft introduced the lowest-cost storage option Wednesday to its Azure public cloud, challenging rivals Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform in a heating cold storage market.
Archive Blob Storage, launched in public preview, will be the Redmond, Wash.-based cloud giant’s cheapest tier, intended to preserve data that’s so rarely accessed, in the past it might have been discarded, said Kumail Hussain, senior program manager for Azure, in a Microsoft blog post.
The new option responds to archival solutions from Azure’s top competitors – Google Coldline and AWS Glacier. Microsoft hasn’t yet released pricing information for storing data in, or retrieving it from, Archive Blob Storage.
