AzureHazelcastStore Extension (Cluster Storage)

Introduction

The AzureHazelcastStore extension enables the Platform to use Azure Block Blobs as Cluster Storage. Block Blobs are a scalable object storage for documents, videos, pictures, and unstructured text or binary data. Blobs can be stored in Hot tiers.

Some features described in this article may be subject to licensing and/or separate surcharge. See the Private Cloud Bundle Products card article for detailed information.

Using Azure Blob Storage as Cluster Storage

To use Azure Blob Storage as Cluster Storage, you need the following:

  • A single-node or multi-node Platform installation
  • The AzureHazelcastStore extension
  • A storage account in Azure

Follow these installation steps to use Azure Blob Storage as Cluster Storage:

  1. Follow the installation steps in the System Installation: FNZ Studio 2025 section of the System Installation guide.
  2. After stopping the Platform (all nodes), install and configure the AzureHazelcastStore extension (see configuration options).
  3. Start the Platform. The AzureHazelcastStore (permanent) extension should have been configured to start automatically.
  4. The extension automatically creates a container for each distributed map if it does not exist already. These containers are used to store all the data that is saved into the distributed maps.

Configuration Options

To be able to use the AzureHazelcastStore extension, the following properties must be set before a Platform instance using the extension is started:

  • com.nm.extensions.azurehazelcaststore.accountName – The name of your Azure storage account.
  • com.nm.extensions.azurehazelcaststore.accountKey – The access key of your storage account.

Optionally, configure the following property:

  • com.nm.extensions.azurehazelcaststore.containerName – Specifies the container where the cluster storage is to be created. If left blank, one container per distributed map is used.

To define extension properties before startup:

  1. Go to the extensions folder at …/data-home/extensions.
  2. Create a new file with the same name as the extension, adding the CFG filename extension. E.g. for the extension AzureHazelcastStore.jar, the configuration file would be called AzureHazelcastStore.jar.cfg.
  3. Add the necessary configuration properties to the file, using the syntax: [ConfigPropertyName] = [Value] Example: com.nm.extensions.azurehazelcaststore.accountName = MyAzureStorageAccount

Azure Block Blob Rules

The objects stored as an Azure Block Blob must follow these rules:

  • A blob name must be at least one character long and cannot be more than 1,024 characters long. To avoid potential issues, do not create objects (e.g. Business Objects) with long IDs.
  • Blob names are case-sensitive.
  • Reserved URL characters must be properly escaped.
  • The number of path segments comprising the blob name cannot exceed 254. A path segment is the string between consecutive delimiter characters (e.g. the forward slash '/') that corresponds to the name of a virtual directory.

Additional useful information:

  • You can use Azure Search to browse the content of your Cluster Storage folder. Azure Search is a powerful tool that allows you to index and search the data.
  • Azure Storage Analytics performs logging and provides metrics for storage accounts.
  • To get started, a free Account can be used.