Configure a lifecycle management policy

To enable last access time tracking with the Azure portal, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to your storage account in the Azure portal.

2. In the Data management section, select Lifecycle management.

3. Check the checkbox "Enable access tracking"

   

To enable last access time tracking with PowerShell, call the Enable-AzStorageBlobLastAccessTimeTracking command, as shown in the following example. Remember to replace placeholder values in angle brackets with your own values:

# Initialize these variables with your values.
$rgName = "<resource-group>"
$accountName = "<storage-account>"

Enable-AzStorageBlobLastAccessTimeTracking  -ResourceGroupName $rgName `
    -StorageAccountName $accountName `
    -PassThru

To enable last access time tracking with Azure CLI, call the az storage account blob-service-properties update command, as shown in the following example. Remember to replace placeholder values in angle brackets with your own values:

az storage account blob-service-properties update \
    --resource-group <resource-group> \
    --account-name <storage-account> \
    --enable-last-access-tracking true

To enable last access time tracking for a new or existing storage account with an Azure Resource Manager template, include the lastAccessTimeTrackingPolicy object in the template definition. For details, see the Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/blobServices 2021-02-01 - Bicep & ARM template reference. The lastAccessTimeTrackingPolicy object is available in the Azure Storage Resource Provider REST API for versions 2019-06-01 and later.

There are two ways to add a policy through the Azure portal.

• List view
• Code view

List view

1. In the Azure portal, navigate to your storage account.

2. Under Data management, select Lifecycle Management to view or change lifecycle management policies.

3. Select the List View tab.

4. Select Add a rule and name your rule on the Details form. You can also set the Rule scope, Blob type, and Blob subtype values. The following example sets the scope to filter blobs. This causes the Filter set tab to be added.

1. Select Base blobs to set the conditions for your rule. In the following example, blobs are moved to cool storage if they haven't been modified for 30 days.

The Last accessed option is available only if you have enabled access time tracking and you've selected Block blobs as the blob type. To learn how to enable access tracking, see Optionally enable access time tracking.

1. If you selected Limit blobs with filters on the Details page, select Filter set to add an optional filter. The following example filters on blobs whose name begins with log in a container called sample-container.

1. Select Add to add the new policy.

Keep in mind that a lifecycle management policy will not delete the current version of a blob until any previous versions or snapshots associated with that blob have been deleted. If blobs in your storage account have previous versions or snapshots, then you should select Base blobs, Snapshots, and Versions in the Blob Subtype section when you are specifying a delete action as part of the policy.

Code view

1. In the Azure portal, navigate to your storage account.
2. Under Data management, select Lifecycle Management to view or change lifecycle management policies.
3. Select the Code View tab. On this tab, you can define a lifecycle management policy in JSON.

The following sample JSON defines a lifecycle policy that moves a block blob whose name begins with log to the cool tier if it has been more than 30 days since the blob was modified.

{
  "rules": [
    {
      "enabled": true,
      "name": "move-to-cool",
      "type": "Lifecycle",
      "definition": {
        "actions": {
          "baseBlob": {
            "tierToCool": {
              "daysAfterModificationGreaterThan": 30
            }
          }
        },
        "filters": {
          "blobTypes": [
            "blockBlob"
          ],
          "prefixMatch": [
            "sample-container/log"
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

To add a lifecycle management policy with PowerShell, use these commands:

• Call the Add-AzStorageAccountManagementPolicyAction command to define the actions that comprise a rule.
• Call the New-AzStorageAccountManagementPolicyFilter command to specify one or more filters for a rule.
• Call the New-AzStorageAccountManagementPolicyRule command to create a policy rule that includes actions and optional filters.
• Call the Set-AzStorageAccountManagementPolicy command to create the policy on the storage account.

The following example shows how to use each of these commands to create a lifecycle policy. Remember to replace placeholder values in angle brackets with your own values:

# Initialize the following variables with your values.
$rgName = "<resource-group>"
$accountName = "<storage-account>"

# Create a new action object.
$action = Add-AzStorageAccountManagementPolicyAction -BaseBlobAction Delete `
    -daysAfterModificationGreaterThan 180
Add-AzStorageAccountManagementPolicyAction -InputObject $action `
    -BaseBlobAction TierToArchive `
    -daysAfterModificationGreaterThan 90
Add-AzStorageAccountManagementPolicyAction -InputObject $action `
    -BaseBlobAction TierToCool `
    -daysAfterModificationGreaterThan 30
Add-AzStorageAccountManagementPolicyAction -InputObject $action `
    -SnapshotAction Delete `
    -daysAfterCreationGreaterThan 90
Add-AzStorageAccountManagementPolicyAction -InputObject $action `
    -BlobVersionAction TierToArchive `
    -daysAfterCreationGreaterThan 90

# Create a new filter object.
$filter = New-AzStorageAccountManagementPolicyFilter -PrefixMatch ab,cd `
    -BlobType blockBlob

# Create a new rule object.
$rule1 = New-AzStorageAccountManagementPolicyRule -Name sample-rule `
    -Action $action `
    -Filter $filter

# Create the policy.
Set-AzStorageAccountManagementPolicy -ResourceGroupName $rgName `
    -StorageAccountName $accountName `
    -Rule $rule1

To add a lifecycle management policy with Azure CLI, write the policy to a JSON file, then call the az storage account management-policy create command to create the policy.

The following example shows how to use each of these commands to create a lifecycle policy. Remember to replace placeholder values in angle brackets with your own values:

az storage account management-policy create \
    --account-name <storage-account> \
    --policy @policy.json \
    --resource-group <resource-group>

To define a lifecycle management policy with an Azure Resource Manager template, include the Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/managementPolicies object in your template. For configuration details, see Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/managementPolicies 2021-02-01 - Bicep & ARM template reference. The Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/managementPolicies object is available in the Azure Storage Resource Provider REST API for versions 2018-11-01 and later.