Using Azure Blob Storage for Media and ImageSharp Cache
Setup your site to use Azure Blob storage for media and ImageSharp cache
For Umbraco sites, there are some scenarios when you may want or need to consider using Azure Blob Storage for your media, particularly if your site contains large amounts of media. Having your site's media in Azure Blob Storage can also help your deployments complete more quickly, and has the potential to positively affect site performance, as the ImageSharp cache is moved to Azure Blob Storage.
The setup consists of adding a package to your site, setting the correct configuration, and adding the services and middleware. Before you begin you’ll need to create an Azure Storage Account and a container for your media and ImageSharp cache. In this example, we assume your container name is "mysitestorage" and has already been created.
Before you begin, you need to install the
Umbraco.StorageProviders.AzureBlob and the Umbraco.StorageProviders.AzureBlob.ImageSharp NuGet packages. There are two approaches to installing the packages:- 1.Use your favorite Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and open up the NuGet Package Manager to search and install the packages
- 2.Use the command line to install the packages
Navigate to your project folder, which is the folder that contains your
.csproj file. Now use the following dotnet add package commands to install the packages:dotnet add package Umbraco.StorageProviders.AzureBlob
dotnet add package Umbraco.StorageProviders.AzureBlob.ImageSharp
The correct packages will have been installed in your project.
The next step is to configure your blob storage. There are multiple approaches for this, but in this document, we're going to do it through
appsettings.json. For more configuration options, see the readme on the Github repository.Open up your
appsettings.json file and add the connection string and container name under Umbraco:Storage:AzureBlob:Media. Your Umbraco section of appsettings will look something like this: "Umbraco": {
"Storage": {
"AzureBlob": {
"Media": {
"ConnectionString": "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=<media account name>;AccountKey=<media account key>;EndpointSuffix=core.windows.net",
"ContainerName": "mysitestorage"
}
}
},
"CMS": {
"Hosting": {
"Debug": false
},
{...}
}
}
Note that in this example, the container name is
mysitestorage.You can get your connection string from your Azure Portal under "Access Keys".
You're almost there. The last step is to set up the required services and middleware. This may sound daunting, but thankfully there are extension methods that do all this for you. All you need to do is invoke them in the
ConfigureServices and Configure methods in the startup.cs file.Invoke the
.AddAzureBlobMediaFileSystem() and the .AddAzureBlobImageSharpCache() extension methods in the ConfigureServices method: public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
#pragma warning disable IDE0022 // Use expression body for methods
services.AddUmbraco(_env, _config)
.AddBackOffice()
.AddWebsite()
.AddComposers()
.AddAzureBlobMediaFileSystem() // This configures the required services for Media
.AddAzureBlobImageSharpCache() // This configures the required services for the Image Sharp cache
.Build();
#pragma warning restore IDE0022 // Use expression body for methods
}
Upgrading from Umbraco 9/10:
As of version 11.0.0 of
Umbraco.StorageProviders, the ImageSharp dependency has been separated into its own package.Therefore, if you're planning on upgrading your site from Umbraco 9/10 to 11+, don't forget to install and setup the new
Umbraco.StorageProviders.AzureBlob.ImageSharp package. This will ensure that your ImageSharp cache continues to be stored in your blob storage container.Now when you launch your site again, the blob storage will be used to store media items as well as the ImageSharp cache. Do note though that the
/media and /cache folders do not get created until a piece of media is uploaded.Any media files you already have on your site will not automatically be added to the blob storage container. You will need to copy the contents on the
/wwwroot/media folder and upload them to a new folder called /media in your blob storage container. Once you've done that, you can safely delete the wwwroot/media folder locally, as it is no longer needed.Any new media files you upload to the site will automatically be added to the Blob Storage.