Microsoftdocs Agent Skills

Azure Elastic San

Expert knowledge for Azure Elastic SAN development including troubleshooting, best practices, decision making, architecture & design patterns, limits & quotas, security, configuration, integrations & coding patterns, and deployment. Use when provisioning Elastic SAN volumes, AVS datastores, iSCSI clients, snapshots, or CMK-encrypted deployments, and other Azure Elastic SAN related development tasks. Not for Azure Blob Storage (use azure-blob-storage), Azure NetApp Files (use azure-netapp-files), Azure Managed Lustre (use azure-managed-lustre), Azure Container Storage (use azure-container-storage).

Source: /skills/azure-elastic-san/SKILL.md

Azure Elastic SAN Skill

This skill provides expert guidance for Azure Elastic SAN. Covers troubleshooting, best practices, decision making, architecture & design patterns, limits & quotas, security, configuration, integrations & coding patterns, and deployment. It combines local quick-reference content with remote documentation fetching capabilities.

How to Use This Skill

IMPORTANT for Agent: Use the Category Index below to locate relevant sections. For categories with line ranges (e.g., L35-L120), use read_file with the specified lines. For categories with file links (e.g., [security.md](security.md)), use read_file on the linked reference file

IMPORTANT for Agent: If metadata.generated_at is more than 3 months old, suggest the user pull the latest version from the repository. If mcp_microsoftdocs tools are not available, suggest the user install it: Installation Guide

This skill requires network access to fetch documentation content:

  • Preferred: Use mcp_microsoftdocs:microsoft_docs_fetch with query string from=learn-agent-skill. Returns Markdown.
  • Fallback: Use fetch_webpage with query string from=learn-agent-skill&accept=text/markdown. Returns Markdown.

Category Index

Category Lines Description
Troubleshooting L37-L41 Diagnosing and resolving common Azure Elastic SAN issues, including provisioning failures, connectivity/IO errors, performance problems, and typical error codes/logs.
Best Practices L42-L48 Performance tuning, benchmarking, and configuration best practices for Azure Elastic SAN (including AVS datastores) plus guidance on using snapshots for backup.
Decision Making L49-L53 Guidance on sizing and configuring Elastic SAN (performance, capacity, architecture) and deciding how to integrate it with AKS workloads and storage patterns.
Architecture & Design Patterns L54-L58 Patterns for running clustered apps (SQL, Failover Cluster, etc.) on Azure Elastic SAN, including shared volume setup, fencing, failover behavior, and high-availability design.
Limits & Quotas L59-L64 Details on Elastic SAN capacity limits, max IOPS/throughput, and how VM sizes, volume groups, and workloads affect achievable performance and scaling.
Security L65-L74 Encrypting Elastic SAN with customer-managed keys and securing access via encryption options, private endpoints, service endpoints, and network configuration for volumes.
Configuration L75-L83 Deploying, resizing, deleting, and monitoring Azure Elastic SAN instances/volumes, plus configuring iSCSI IQN naming and safe operational best practices.
Integrations & Coding Patterns L84-L91 Creating and benchmarking Elastic SAN volumes, plus step-by-step guidance to connect Linux and Windows clients using iSCSI and optimize performance.
Deployment L92-L95 Guides for migrating Azure VMware Solution (AVS) datastores to Azure Elastic SAN, including configuring and using multiple private endpoints for secure connectivity.

Troubleshooting

Topic URL
Troubleshoot common Azure Elastic SAN issues and errors https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-troubleshoot

Best Practices

Topic URL
Optimize Azure Elastic SAN configuration and performance https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-best-practices
Optimize Elastic SAN datastore performance on AVS https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-performance-on-azure-vmware-solutions
Use snapshots to back up Azure Elastic SAN volumes https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-snapshots

Decision Making

Topic URL
Plan Azure Elastic SAN capacity and configuration https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-planning

Architecture & Design Patterns

Topic URL
Use clustered applications with shared Azure Elastic SAN volumes https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-shared-volumes

Limits & Quotas

Topic URL
Understand Azure Elastic SAN and VM performance limits https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-performance
Azure Elastic SAN capacity, IOPS, and throughput limits https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-scale-targets

Security

Topic URL
Configure customer-managed keys for Azure Elastic SAN https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-configure-customer-managed-keys
Configure private endpoints for Azure Elastic SAN volume groups https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-configure-private-endpoints
Configure service endpoints for Azure Elastic SAN access https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-configure-service-endpoints
Manage customer-managed encryption keys in Elastic SAN https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-encryption-manage-customer-keys
Configure encryption options for Azure Elastic SAN https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-encryption-overview
Configure secure networking for Azure Elastic SAN volumes https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-networking

Configuration

Topic URL
Deploy and configure Azure Elastic SAN resources https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-create
Delete Azure Elastic SAN resources correctly https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-delete
Resize Azure Elastic SAN resources and volumes safely https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-expand
Monitor Azure Elastic SAN with built-in metrics https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-metrics
Transition Elastic SAN IQN naming authority https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-transition-iqn-naming-authority

Integrations & Coding Patterns

Topic URL
Batch-create Azure Elastic SAN volumes with PowerShell https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-batch-create-sample
Benchmark Azure Elastic SAN with DiskSpd and fio https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-benchmarking
Connect Linux clients to Azure Elastic SAN volumes https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-connect-linux
Connect Windows clients to Azure Elastic SAN volumes https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-connect-windows

Deployment

Topic URL
Migrate AVS datastores to Elastic SAN with more private endpoints https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/elastic-san/elastic-san-increase-private-endpoints-azure-vmware-solutions