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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Small and medium business | Business Central, N... / Business central Exter...
Small and medium business | Business Central, N...
Answered

Business central External Storage Connection

(1) ShareShare
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Posted on by CU11090604-0 80

Hello Experts,

Could you please explain which is more cost-effective — connecting SharePoint or Azure Blob Storage to Business Central?
Additionally, could you provide a sample code snippet demonstrating how to connect, along with an explanation of the purpose of each part of the code?

Thank you in advance!

Categories:
Dynamics 365 Business Central
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  • Suggested answer
    Sahan Hasitha Profile Picture
    Sahan Hasitha 433 on at
    Business central External Storage Connection
    hi
    try this
    When integrating Business Central with external storage, SharePoint and Azure Blob serve different purposes. SharePoint is best suited for structured content like documents and lists, offering strong collaboration features, document management, workflows, and seamless integration with Microsoft 365 apps, though its scalability is more limited and costs are higher. Azure Blob Storage, on the other hand, is designed for unstructured data such as images, videos, and large files, providing highly scalable, cost-effective storage with advanced security and deep integration across Azure services. In practice, choose SharePoint if your focus is collaboration and document sharing, and opt for Azure Blob Storage if you need efficient, scalable, and affordable storage for bulk unstructured data.
  • Verified answer
    Nimsara Jayathilaka. Profile Picture
    Nimsara Jayathilaka. 1,002 on at
    Business central External Storage Connection
    Authorization := StorageServiceAuthorization.CreateSharedKey(StorageAccountKey);
    This creates an authorization object using shared key authentication. The StorageAccountKey is your Azure storage account's access key (a base64-encoded string that acts like a password for your storage account).
     
    ContainerClient.Initialize(StorageAccountName, Authorization);

    This initializes a container client by providing:

    • StorageAccountName: The name of your Azure storage account
    • Authorization: The authorization object created in the previous step
     
    Response := ContainerClient.ListContainers(Container);
    This calls the Azure API to retrieve a list of containers in the storage account. The result is stored in a Response variable.
     

    Overall Purpose

    This code sequence is setting up authenticated access to an Azure Blob Storage account and then retrieving information about containers within that account. It's using shared key authentication, which is one of several ways to authenticate with Azure Storage services.

  • Verified answer
    Nimsara Jayathilaka. Profile Picture
    Nimsara Jayathilaka. 1,002 on at
    Business central External Storage Connection
    This this the way of connct azure blob stoarage
     
     
  • Verified answer
    Nimsara Jayathilaka. Profile Picture
    Nimsara Jayathilaka. 1,002 on at
    Business central External Storage Connection
    SharePoint vs Azure Blob Storage for Business Central:
    • Data Types: SharePoint stores structured data (documents, lists) ideal for collaboration; Azure Blob stores unstructured data (images, videos) suitable for large-scale storage.
    • Features: SharePoint offers document management, workflows, and integration with Microsoft 365 apps; Azure Blob provides scalable, cost-effective storage with advanced security and integration with Azure services.
    • Scalability: Azure Blob Storage is highly scalable, better for big data volumes; SharePoint has limited scalability mainly for enterprise collaboration.
    • Cost: Azure Blob is generally more cost-effective for bulk, unstructured data; SharePoint costs more but includes collaboration and communication tools.
    • Use Case: Choose SharePoint if you need collaboration with documents; choose Azure Blob Storage if you need cost-effective, scalable storage for unstructured data in Business Central.
    Overall, Azure Blob Storage is more cost-effective for large unstructured data, while SharePoint is best for structured data and collaboration features
     
    Thanks
    Nimsara

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