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Host Assets on Azure Blob Storage

Azure Blob Storage is Microsoft's object storage solution for the cloud. Store and serve large amounts of unstructured data with high availability and global redundancy.

By using the Azure Blob Storage destination you can immediately send your assets to your own Blob container, making it quick and easy to host your assets in your own Azure account.

Setup​

Sign up to Microsoft Azure and create a Storage account with a Blob container if you have not already set one up. The container must exist before files can be sent. Azure credentials are required and must be added via the Shotstack dashboard.

Adding credentials​

Login to the dashboard and navigate to the integrations page, find the Azure Blob Storage destination and click configure.

Enter your storage account name and credentials as shown. You can add different credentials for each Shotstack environment; sandbox and v1 (production).

Integration​

Basic integration​

To send files to Azure Blob Storage add the following to the output parameter of a render request JSON payload, JSON template or the root level of an ingest request:

"destinations": [{
    "provider": "azure-blob-storage",
    "options": {
        "accountName": "mystorageaccount",
        "container": "my-container"
    }
}]

This will send the generated or ingested files to the my-container container in the mystorageaccount storage account. The filename will be the render id, source id or rendition id plus extension, i.e. edc47d30-a504-4f16-8439-24c863a7a782.mp4. Thumbnail and poster images will also be transferred.

Advanced integration​

You can also optionally set a virtual directory prefix and custom file name:

"destinations": [{
    "provider": "azure-blob-storage",
    "options": {
        "accountName": "mystorageaccount",
        "container": "my-container",
        "prefix": "videos",
        "filename": "my-video"
    }
}]

This will send the rendered files to the my-container container with a virtual directory prefix of videos. If the rendered file is an mp4, the filename will be my-video.mp4.

When using a custom filename omit the file extension, i.e. .mp4 or .jpg. This will be added based on the rendered file type. If a poster or thumbnail are created these will have -poster.jpg and -thumbnail.jpg appended.

Sending assets to multiple containers​

It is also possible to send files to multiple containers with one request:

"destinations": [{
    "provider": "azure-blob-storage",
    "options": {
        "accountName": "mystorageaccount",
        "container": "my-container"
    }
},{
    "provider": "azure-blob-storage",
    "options": {
        "accountName": "mystorageaccount",
        "container": "my-backup-container",
        "prefix": "backups"
    }
}]

This will send rendered assets to my-container and to the backups prefix of my-backup-container. Containers must be in the same Azure Storage account and accessible by the configured credentials.

Opting out from the Shotstack destination​

By default all generated files are sent to the Shotstack destination. If you are using Azure Blob Storage you may wish to opt out from hosting your videos with Shotstack using:

"destinations": [{
    "provider": "azure-blob-storage",
    "options": {
        "accountName": "mystorageaccount",
        "container": "my-container"
    }
},{
    "provider": "shotstack",
    "exclude": true
}]

This will send the generated video to Azure Blob Storage but not to Shotstack.