Azure's fully managed cloud file share service that exposes shared storage over the SMB (Server Message Block) and NFS (Network File System) protocols — the same protocols used by on-premises Windows and Linux file servers. Unlike Azure Blob Storage, which stores unstructured objects accessed via HTTP APIs, Azure Files presents a true filesystem mount point: VMs, containers, and on-premises machines can map it as a network drive and use ordinary file I/O without any code changes. This makes it the go-to choice for lift-and-shift migrations of legacy applications that expect a shared drive, as well as for sharing configuration files, certificates, or application data across multiple compute instances. Azure Files integrates with Azure Active Directory Domain Services for identity-based access control, supports snapshots for point-in-time recovery, and can be cached on-premises using Azure File Sync to reduce latency for distributed teams. The AWS equivalent is EFS (for Linux/NFS workloads) or FSx for Windows File Server (for SMB); GCP's equivalent is Filestore; OCI offers File Storage. Key distinctions within Azure storage: Blob Storage is for unstructured objects accessed via REST APIs, ADLS Gen2 is for big data analytics pipelines with a hierarchical namespace, and Azure Files is for shared filesystem access over standard network protocols.
A financial services company lifts and shifts a legacy .NET application to Azure VMs. The app was built to read configuration and audit logs from a Windows shared drive (\\server\share). Rather than rewriting file access logic, the team mounts an Azure Files share on each VM using SMB — the application keeps working without modification. They enable Azure File Sync on the on-premises office server so the accounting team can access the same files locally with low latency.
These services provide managed file storage solutions that can be accessed over network protocols like SMB and NFS, similar to traditional file servers.