Set or change a block blob's access tier with Java

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This article shows how to set or change the access tier for a block blob using the Azure Storage client library for Java.

Prerequisites

Set up your environment

If you don't have an existing project, this section shows you how to set up a project to work with the Azure Blob Storage client library for Java. For more information, see Get started with Azure Blob Storage and Java.

To work with the code examples in this article, follow these steps to set up your project.

Note

This article uses the Maven build tool to build and run the example code. Other build tools, such as Gradle, also work with the Azure SDK for Java.

Install packages

Open the pom.xml file in your text editor. Install the packages by including the BOM file, or including a direct dependency.

Add import statements

Add the following import statements:

import com.azure.core.util.polling.LongRunningOperationStatus;
import com.azure.core.util.polling.PollResponse;
import com.azure.core.util.polling.SyncPoller;
import com.azure.storage.blob.*;
import com.azure.storage.blob.models.*;
import com.azure.storage.blob.options.BlobBeginCopyOptions;

Authorization

The authorization mechanism must have the necessary permissions to set a blob's access tier. For authorization with Microsoft Entra ID (recommended), you need Azure RBAC built-in role Storage Blob Data Contributor or higher. To learn more, see the authorization guidance for Set Blob Tier.

Create a client object

To connect an app to Blob Storage, create an instance of BlobServiceClient.

The following example uses BlobServiceClientBuilder to build a BlobServiceClient object using DefaultAzureCredential, and shows how to create container and blob clients, if needed:

// Azure SDK client builders accept the credential as a parameter
// TODO: Replace <storage-account-name> with your actual storage account name
BlobServiceClient blobServiceClient = new BlobServiceClientBuilder()
        .endpoint("https://<storage-account-name>.blob.core.windows.net/")
        .credential(new DefaultAzureCredentialBuilder().build())
        .buildClient();

// If needed, you can create a BlobContainerClient object from the BlobServiceClient
BlobContainerClient containerClient = blobServiceClient
        .getBlobContainerClient("<container-name>");

// If needed, you can create a BlobClient object from the BlobContainerClient
BlobClient blobClient = containerClient
        .getBlobClient("<blob-name>");

To learn more about creating and managing client objects, see Create and manage client objects that interact with data resources.

About block blob access tiers

To manage costs for storage needs, it can be helpful to organize your data based on how frequently it's accessed and how long it needs to be retained. Azure storage offers different access tiers so that you can store your blob data in the most cost-effective manner based on how it's being used.

Access tiers for blob data

Azure Storage access tiers include:

  • Hot tier - An online tier optimized for storing data that is accessed or modified frequently. The hot tier has the highest storage costs, but the lowest access costs.
  • Cool tier - An online tier optimized for storing data that is infrequently accessed or modified. Data in the cool tier should be stored for a minimum of 30 days. The cool tier has lower storage costs and higher access costs compared to the hot tier.
  • Cold tier - An online tier optimized for storing data that is infrequently accessed or modified. Data in the cold tier should be stored for a minimum of 90 days. The cold tier has lower storage costs and higher access costs compared to the cool tier.
  • Archive tier - An offline tier optimized for storing data that is rarely accessed, and that has flexible latency requirements, on the order of hours. Data in the archive tier should be stored for a minimum of 180 days.

To learn more about access tiers, see Access tiers for blob data.

While a blob is in the Archive access tier, it's considered to be offline, and can't be read or modified. In order to read or modify data in an archived blob, you must first rehydrate the blob to an online tier. To learn more about rehydrating a blob from the Archive tier to an online tier, see Blob rehydration from the Archive tier.

Restrictions

Setting the access tier is only allowed on block blobs. To learn more about restrictions on setting a block blob's access tier, see Set Blob Tier (REST API).

Note

To set the access tier to Cold using Java, you must use a minimum client library version of 12.21.0.

Set a blob's access tier during upload

You can set a blob's access tier on upload by using the BlobUploadFromFileOptions class. The following code example shows how to set the access tier when uploading a blob:

public void uploadBlobWithAccessTier(BlobContainerClient blobContainerClient, Path filePath) {
    String fileName = filePath.getFileName().toString();
    BlobClient blobClient = blobContainerClient.getBlobClient(fileName);

    BlobUploadFromFileOptions options = new BlobUploadFromFileOptions(filePath.toString())
            .setTier(AccessTier.COOL);

    try {
        Response<BlockBlobItem> blockBlob = blobClient.uploadFromFileWithResponse(options, null, null);
    } catch (UncheckedIOException ex) {
        System.err.printf("Failed to upload from file: %s%n", ex.getMessage());
    }
}

To learn more about uploading a blob with Java, see Upload a blob with Java.

Change the access tier for an existing block blob

You can change the access tier of an existing block blob by using one of the following methods:

The following code example shows how to change the access tier to Cool for an existing blob:

public void changeBlobAccessTier(BlobClient blobClient) {
    // Change the blob's access tier to cool
    blobClient.setAccessTier(AccessTier.COOL);
}

If you're rehydrating an archived blob, use the setAccessTierWithResponse method. Set the tier parameter to a valid AccessTier value of HOT, COOL, COLD, or ARCHIVE. You can optionally set the priority parameter to a valid RehydratePriority value HIGH or STANDARD.

The following code example shows how to rehydrate an archived blob by changing the access tier to Hot:

public void rehydrateBlobSetAccessTier(BlobClient blobClient) {
    // Rehydrate the blob to hot tier using a standard rehydrate priority
    blobClient.setAccessTierWithResponse(
        AccessTier.HOT,
        RehydratePriority.STANDARD,
        null, 
        null, 
        null);
}

The setAccessTierWithResponse method can also accept a BlobSetAccessTierOptions parameter to specify configuration options.

Copy a blob to a different access tier

You can change the access tier of an existing block blob by specifying an access tier as part of a copy operation. To change the access tier during a copy operation, use the BlobBeginCopyOptions class.

You can use the setTier method to specify the AccessTier value as HOT, COOL, COLD, or ARCHIVE. If you're rehydrating a blob from the archive tier using a copy operation, use the setRehydratePriority method to specify the RehydratePriority value as HIGH or STANDARD.

The following code example shows how to rehydrate an archived blob to the Hot tier using a copy operation:

public void rehydrateBlobUsingCopy(
    BlobClient sourceArchiveBlob,
    BlobClient destinationRehydratedBlob) {
    // Note: the destination blob must have a different name than the archived source blob

    // Start the copy operation and wait for it to complete
    final SyncPoller<BlobCopyInfo, Void> poller = destinationRehydratedBlob.beginCopy(
            new BlobBeginCopyOptions(sourceArchiveBlob.getBlobUrl())
                    .setTier(AccessTier.HOT)
                    .setRehydratePriority(RehydratePriority.STANDARD));
                    
    PollResponse<BlobCopyInfo> response = poller
            .waitUntil(LongRunningOperationStatus.SUCCESSFULLY_COMPLETED);
}

To learn more about copying a blob with Java, see Copy a blob with Java.

Resources

To learn more about setting access tiers using the Azure Blob Storage client library for Java, see the following resources.

Code samples

REST API operations

The Azure SDK for Java contains libraries that build on top of the Azure REST API, allowing you to interact with REST API operations through familiar Java paradigms. The client library methods for setting access tiers use the following REST API operation:

Client library resources

See also

Related content

  • This article is part of the Blob Storage developer guide for Java. To learn more, see the full list of developer guide articles at Build your Java app.