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In a Windows Azure hosted service, the storage account name and access key are stored in the service configuration file. By convention, the account name and access key for data access are provided in a setting named DataConnectionString. The account name and access key needed for Windows Azure diagnostics must be provided in a setting named Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString.

The DataConnectionString setting must be declared in the ConfigurationSettings section of the service definition file. However, unlike other settings, the connection string setting for Windows Azure diagnostics is implicitly defined when the diagnostics module is specified in the Imports section of the service definition file. Consequently, it must not be specified in the ConfigurationSettings section.

A best practice is to use different storage accounts for application data and diagnostic data. This reduces the possibility of application data access being throttled by competition for concurrent writes from the diagnostics monitor. It also provides a security boundary between application data and diagnostics data, as diagnostics data may be accessed by individuals who should have no access to application data.

In the Windows Azure Storage Client library, access to the storage service is through one of the client classes. There is one client class for each of Blob service, Queue service, and Table service—CloudBlobClient, CloudQueueClient, and CloudTableClient respectively. Instances of these classes store the pertinent endpoint, as well as the account name and access key.

The CloudBlobClient class provides methods to access containers list their contents and get references to containers and blobs. The CloudQueueClient class provides methods to list queues and to get a reference to the CloudQueue instance used as an entry point to the Queue service functionality. The CloudTableClient class provides methods to manage tables and to get the TableServiceContext instance used to access the WCF Data Services functionality used in accessing the Table service. Note that CloudBlobClient, CloudQueueClient, and CloudTableClient instances are not thread safe so distinct instances should be used when accessing these services concurrently.

The client classes must be initialized with the account name and access key, as well as the appropriate storage service endpoint. The Microsoft.WindowsAzure namespace has several helper classes. The StorageCredentialsAccountAndKey class initializes a StorageCredential instance from an account name and access key while the StorageCredentialsSharedAccessSignature class initializes a StorageCredential instance from a shared access signature. The CloudStorageAccount class provides methods to initialize an encapsulated StorageCredential instance directly from the service configuration file.

Source of Information : MICROSOFT WINDOWS AZURE DEVELOPMENT COOKBOOK