Azure Blob Storage URL : WASB:// vs HTTP://

Question

I see that there are different kinds of URLS to access a blob storage like shown below:

wasb://[email protected]

https://[email protected]

What is the difference? what could be the reason for difference?

Downtime

Answer 1

From what I understand, wasb://[email protected] is used to access blob storage through HDInsight (ref: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/documentation/articles/hdinsight-use-blob-storage/) where as https://[email protected] is used to access blobs through clients supporting HTTP protocol (web browsers etc.).

Incomplete

yes. wasb is the driver which implements Hadoop File System APIs, aka HDFS. Now, however you can use the new driver with ADLS Gen 2 - azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/storage/data-lake-storage – Denishadenison

Answer 2

Just to refine the previous answer a bit: wasb is the hdfs compatible API on top of Azure blob storage. So, using it you can access blobs from any hdfs client, be it part of HDInsight, a self installed IaaS hadoop cluster etc.

Nowt

Answer 3

There is another scheme: wasbs which enables secured transfers with hadoop clients. If you always want secured transfers with your storage account you can enable secured transfers configuration through Azure portal.

Garrek