Extend Windows Explorer so that it integrates with Windows Azure Storage
Why pay for 3rd party tools when we could use a built-in Windows application? Windows Explorer is the most natural way to utilize the storage services of Windows Azure. Drag and drop files to copy them between the local file system and blob storage; use a custom view to display/edit tabular data in table storage and messages in queue storage.

7 comments
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Hifni Nazeer commented
We are running many un-attended processes which use files to be processed. Azure Storage Explorer can not be used for a user other than an administrator, hence there is no option other than having Windows explorer in this context. If such offerings are available, we could have blob containers in user's terminal as a Mapped Network drives. This will allow the user to drop files in it and can be triggered by an Azure function.
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MO commented
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/partners/stonefly/stonefly-cloud-drive/
use the NAS or iSCSI drive from Stonefly www.Stonefly.com Cloud Drive
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John commented
CloudBacko home software is the best software for Exchange VM backup. CloudBacko supports both EDB and Mail-level. Easily restore emails, calendars, contacts of individual mailboxes with a few clicks. No need to restore full Exchange Information Store beforehand. Easily browse and select with a Windows File Explorer-like interface. Exchange Server backup pre-requisites checking guarantees restorability. Block level incremental hot backup with zero downtime. Directly restore EDB backup to original database.http://www.cloudbacko.com/free-backup.jsp
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Steve Waller commented
This functionality would put Azure ahead of Amazon S3.
Amazon S3 had a substantial head start on Azure Storage but they have refused to offer interface and tools to allow local drive mapping. If MS would implement NTFS and this feature of drive map and integrated windows explorer, I would personally drop S3 like a hot potato.
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Zoltán Morvai commented
CloudBerry Drive (http://www.cloudberrylab.com/windows-azure-cloud-drive-desktop-software.aspx)
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Thirumalai commented
Even my client required the same functionality for connecting Azure blob, Drive with Windows Explorer as all the end user already familiar with Windows Explorer.
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jerryhuang88 commented
Better yet, why stop at Windows Explorer, a drive mapping feature like the one offered by Gladinet Cloud Desktop (http://www.gladinet.com) would be nice. There is a drive letter, the drive can be accessed from both Windows Explorer and command line (cmd.exe). When you do a drag and drop or copy files x:\, the files are copied from local to Azure Blob Storage or vise versa.